


Save the Kid, Save the World

by Editor1



Series: Save the Kid, Save the World [1]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Adding a female character Joss Whedon can't torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Established relationship faces time travel stupidity, F/M, Fix-It, Fixing Joss Whedon's Mistakes, Gore, I literally made this as close to Canon as possible, Major Original Character(s), Minor Character Death, Quor'toth, Slow Burn, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:14:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 22
Words: 100,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24813646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Editor1/pseuds/Editor1
Summary: First season of fixing the character assassination of Connor. His story was shafted. We can all agree on that. So in order to see if this issue can be fixed, a rogue character is introduced to mess with fate and the Powers That Be.Shift is a mystery. But she's a mystery that's bound and determined to save someone that's never heard of her. Who the fuck cares about the moral, philosophical, and logical consequences? There's a kid to keep from mental brainwashing.This season follows Connor's adventures in Quor'toth and begins at the end of S3E16 "Sleep Tight".
Relationships: Connor (AtS)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Save the Kid, Save the World [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2050509
Comments: 30
Kudos: 19





	1. Sleep Tight

**Author's Note:**

> This story is finished up until around Benediction, literally all I need to do is edit. And I will. I promise. I plan to have this finished up until around Spin the Bottle. Might go a little outside of Spin the Bottle, but no further. 
> 
> This fic is currently 100,000 words on my doc.
> 
> We're going to be here a while.

When the Hellmouth first opened and the demon came pouring out sputtering and coughing, the first thing she dealt with was the stench. It was fucking gross, she had to say. Rotten eggs and shit. Brimstone, the bookish types would call it, but to her, it was just an assault on her enhanced sense of smell. She coughed a little more, spat some black soot against the stone, then began her way out of that godforsaken hole to see what the hell was going on. There was annoying-ass gate in the way with writing on it that could have been chicken scratch for all she cared – she forced that open before quickly closing it behind her. Couldn’t be too sure what the fuck was going on at the moment, so she wasn’t taking any chances. Whatever she had left behind, she didn’t want following.

And then she climbed. It was difficult, the rocks and crags tore at her skin, but the fire erupting from her skin licked it right up and left her as fresh as a baby’s bottom. It disappeared when it was finished, but it jumped up again with every wound. She actually enjoyed the trek, it gave her an opportunity to stretch her muscles and really feel the weight of her having been ripped from her own dimension, then plopped down at the center of the goddamn Earth. What had she done to deserve this treatment this time? What God had she pissed off?

Surely there had to be something of value at the summit of this cliff edge. Surely when she went up these ancient stairs of runes and depictions of monsters, and then up another set of stairs with what she assumed was a hell of a lot of antique do not disturb signs, and then _another_ , and this weird ass tunnel, and then this walkway, and through this perfectly normal looking door, she’d find herself somewhere worth ogling.

Nah. Just a library. Figures.

Shift took a wide, sweeping glance at the room of books shrouded in darkness. The shelves were neatly tucked away and stacked with literature that she couldn’t have cared less about. It was the middle of the night, she judged by the moon coming through the windows. The place had been left spick and span, nearly sparkling. Nothing moved, but for the dust motes in the air. She walked a little further, poked her head out through the entrance, and noted the battered lockers lining the halls.

Still didn’t answer any questions, though. So, the demon kept walking. Real casual like, right out of the high school, like she didn’t look like something had just chewed her up and spat her right back out again. She might have been healed, and her clothes might have kept that old magic that knitted them back together with every rip, but that wild mess of hair was more tangled than ever, and every inch of her was streaked with dirt.

This was another one of E’s tricks, she knew. It had to be. Upon closer inspection, there was no other explanation for waking up in the middle of who-the-fuck-knew-where. The Editor was fond of throwing her out into the boonies of dimensions to see what she might do. Each time usually ended up with at least half the country on fire, and that was only the demon’s fault most of the time. This place was not Darktree, Ridgeden, or any other small town she was familiar with. She was in a whole new world, and she had to say, the travel plans weren’t exactly her thing. She might have enjoyed a nice little teleporting, maybe even a little dimensional space travel if she was feeling up to it. But coming straight out of Mother Nature’s butt cheeks without so much as an explanation? Well, she’d be checking that one off the bucket list, she guessed. Right under ‘never do again’.

She looked at the street names for any clues she might get, but she got nothing. Default names. At least they were English. Made things a little easier, since that had been what she’d been using for the past hundred years. Breaking out a little French or German would have been outside her comfort zone.

But the buildings were all dark, closed down for the night. Close together, fancy book stores, hardware, coffee shops were all dark and as boarded as a still-open venue could be. She heard a car alarm in the distance, and that seemed to be the only signal of life. There wasn’t a soul in sight. There was a faint chill in the air, and she burned her body temperature up a little higher. If she was going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere, she wasn’t going to do it freezing her ass off.

But damn, where the hell even was she?

It took going north up the street all the way ‘till the highway to figure that out. And then she finally took in a sign that explained everything she was about to do. Looking back, she wanted to swear at how conniving a God could be. Placing her here, of all places, miles away from where she needed to be.

_‘You are now leaving Sunnyvale. Have a pleasant day!’_

Alarm bells went off in her mind. Shit. Well that answered that.

Her mind started racing. But what time period was it? How far back had she gone? Did she have time to do anything, change anything? Was she even capable of such a feat? Was this all some stupid joke she was going to wake up from? What did E think this was, a game, or an attempt to right wrongs? And how many wrongs did she have the opportunity to right in the first place?

How could she keep him safe?

Fuck, no time to lose, to be honest. None at all.

The first car that stopped for the poor lost girl on the highway was the unlucky one. The man poked his head out for that cute ethnic girl with her thumb sticking out just as much as that belly button underneath her flowing long sleeved crop top and hastened a grin. She was definitely his type. Athletic, small, and tight, looking desperate enough to say yes to whatever fantasy he had in mind. She might have been homeless, with that long, ragged hair and the dust covering her from her head to those harem pants that sat low on her hips, but he wasn’t about to discriminate. If the girl needed a ride, then he’d be happy to oblige. If, of course, she was willing to offer up.

“Need a ride?” He honked his horn and she smiled faintly. Strange how in the light of his high beams, her eyes seemed almost red. They reflected the light like a cats’. He glanced at the faint glow of the digital clock illuminating his dashboard. Well, it was nearly three, and he had been driving for hours down the highway. Probably just seeing crazy. Finding a motel down the road with this girl would be dream. Hell, was she even legal? Not like he cared.

“Yes please!” She climbed in next to him and curled up in the seat with her knees pulled up for her thin arms to wrap around them. Just like a child. But by the way she looked, he had to guess sixteen, maybe seventeen. Hell, she might have been running away from home, looking like she did. Strange, though, how her eyes seemed red even in the dim light of the dash, and the faint reflection of the headlights bouncing from the trees back to the car. He rubbed his face.

“Where to, pretty girl?”

“Los Angeles.”

“Seriously? I’m going the opposite direction.”

“Well, you don’t have to drive me there,” she argued. He bit his tongue. Couldn’t pass up on this opportunity, no matter how tired he was.

He quirked a grin. “I will, on one condition sweetheart.”

She blinked her eyelashes at him in response, and his stomach turned. He swore they were red, those eyes. Even looking straight at him now, in the dark, it was like they were glowing. “What’s that?”

“How ‘bout a little time in the back of the car, you and I? Just fifteen minutes.” Surely he was awake enough to get his freak on. Then he could convince her to stay the night, or maybe just kick her out. Not like he could make her go anywhere.

She bit her lip thoughtfully.

His hands gripped the steering wheel of the car.

Teeth that ended in points dug into skin, and caused beads of blood to form that she quickly licked away. Tiny flames replaced those wounds with healed flesh in seconds. “Nah,” she purred. “I think, actually, I’ll be taking this car.”

“Right.” His heart pounded. “You… You take the car.”

“And I think I’ll take you too.”

“No, no you take the car.” He reached back to fumble for the handle in growing desperation, but she leaned forward like a stretching cat and placed her hands delicately over his shoulders. His body froze.

“I haven’t eaten in a while,” she told the man who trembled beneath her grasp. “And if I’m going to make it all the way with no time to spare, I can’t afford to make to pit stops. I can’t afford to be delicate. I’m going to need all the strength I can get.” She opened wide, revealing the huge set of shark teeth in her mouth, impossibly sharp, and utterly inhuman. The jaw itself opened wider than it should have. The man’s trembling stopped. All that was left within him, was the cold despair of knowing what would happen next. “Sorry if I’m a little rusty. Can’t remember the last time I’ve had to kill.”

The screams on the highway weren’t heard by anyone that night. Even if they were, Sunnydale was a place where you didn’t ask. That man had made the crucial mistake of stopping by the Hellmouth, and now, unfortunately, he was paying for it. There was a reason truckers never made long pit stops there.

Curiously, though, it wasn’t something of this dimension that had gotten him. Not even of this universe.

...

The next day was when everything went to hell, and the demon arrived just in time.

There were the men with guns, there was Holtz, there was Angel looking like he was about to end everyone’s life at the same time, and there was the demon appearing out of thin fucking air. It was the standoff to end all standoffs, everyone looking as though they had something desperately intimate to lose. In many cases, they did.

Oh, and of course, there was Shift practically screeching to a halt in the stolen Toyota Camry she’d been cruising around all day in, trying to get the location right. Following all of the moving parts of this shitshow had been difficult, with what little information she’d gotten ages back that she _swore_ back then wouldn’t be important. She was just glad she remembered _enough._ The thing was, as important as life events are, most people don’t tell you the street names they happen on.

Sixth street bridge was busy today. The demon peered over the front of the car to see what was going down, and just how far they’d gotten into the conflict. She’d figured out the dates enough to know what time period she was in, but that didn’t tell her hours or minutes. Was she too late?

The baby was crying in Holtz’s arms. No. She was just in time.

“We do not want the child alive. We want the child dead.” The demon said. “That was our arrangement.”

“Yeah,” intoned the woman backed by the gunmen. Shift wracked her brain for the chick’s name and came up with nothing. “I’m a lawyer. Have you met me?” She smiled. “We have a new arrangement. I’m keeping the baby.”

Quietly stepping out the car, the demon was remarkably impressed with how little anyone seemed to give a shit about her presence. But then, they may not have noticed. Things were intense. Holtz was looking more desperate by the minute. There was no portal yet, but she knew it was coming.

“Anyone tries to take him, he dies,” the hunter said.

Angel was weighing his options in his mind, but he knew there was really only one answer here. Shift had never seen much of the vampire before. But looking at him now, she was really reminded of a certain other self-sacrificing blowhard that had since turned over a new leaf. He and Ro even had the same chiseled jaw line. It was uncanny. Probably had the same lack of humor as well.

“Take him,” Angel decidedly gasped.

“Woah, no!” The time demon held up his hands. “What is wrong with you people?”

“I will take good care of him,” Holtz hissed to the vampire in a desperate tone. “As though he were my own son. He’ll never even know you existed. But come after me…” Shift grit her teeth as she listened to them. “You will though, won’t you. Maybe I should just…” He gripped the baby’s neck just enough that the fire demon’s nails dug into the stone of the bridge. She was inching closer, closer. She knew he wouldn’t die here, but her heart would just not stop pounding. He was right there. RIGHT there.

“No!” Angel said quickly. “Please. Just take him.”

Sahjahn started chanting and that’s when she knew shit was about to go down. The demon hunkered down as the wind began flying and the dimension ripped itself into existence. Cars erupted into fire and sparks, the bridge itself buckled under the weight of the energy. When he was finished, there was a wavering maw, with the fabric of reality itself fluttering in the dimensional breeze. The rip in space and time showed the group the center of what Shift already knew was bad fucking news.

“What you’re looking into is the Quor’toth,” the demon explained in his raspy, Boston accent, clearly unimpressed. “The darkest of dark worlds. So,” he drew his hands back to his front from the chanting spell he’d just done, “I can widen the portal and you can all be swallowed up by a world you can not _begin_ to imagine. Or you can keep your word and kill that child.” He turned to the lawyer lady and drew himself up to his full height, his mouth turning into a snarl. “NOW!”

No one moved. Well, no one but Shift, who was getting as close as she possibly could without any of them noticing. She was right behind the lawyer and her posse by now, in line with Angel, and just out of the line of sight from Holtz and some girl she believed was working for him. She was standing beside the hunter, lost and waiting for the demon to make his move. Everyone seemed to be waiting for the demon to make his move, in fact. And Sahjahn was quickly realizing no one was about to lift a finger. 

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” the demon finally finished, and his arms rose up to finish the impossible spell.

The portal grew wider as though it were nothing, and the maw of Quor’toth opened further to swallow up the bridge. The lawyer and her men were rattled; Connor was crying, and Shift was waiting for the perfect moment to wrench the baby out of the hunter’s grasp without any danger of him dying in the process. There were too many hands in the pie, too many opportunities. She couldn’t afford to put him into more danger.

“Kill it,” the frightened lawyer turned to command her men as she realized her options had grown thin, but Angel cried out in protest.

“No!” Angel raised the gun he was holding at her face, barking out in reflex with wild eyes. He was bristled and ready to defend his son at all costs. The crying was already panging him – he couldn’t do anything. He was stuck. And the crying was growing louder, and louder.

All at once it happened. The moment that Shift had been dreading. She hadn’t known how the pieces were going to fall into place until it was too late.

Holtz grabbed the girl beside him and threw her into the center of their created no-man’s land just for the chance at a distraction. As she called out his name in pained confusion, he leapt for the rip in space and time.

Shift started running as soon as he did, but she was already too late. Holtz jumped in his own supposed death sentence before she could grab them. Her swearing grew until she was practically screaming into the rip in space and time. “Fuck fuck FUCK FUCK FUCK - ”

Angel was right behind her. He yelled a desperate “NO” as he sprinted forward, gun left forgotten, but the rip’s lightning she just barely avoided colliding took him down in a second. He’d planned on jumping in after them, logic be damned, but that was a moot point now. He was half conscious and staring up at a mystery. What was she? Were those red eyes? What was she saying? Where was his son? What had just happened, it couldn’t have. His son couldn’t be gone. Couldn’t be dead. His head was swimming.

“Sorry, who the hell are you?” Sahjahn blinked at her. She stood just outside the rip, on the verge of throwing herself in. She was going to do this. She had no idea how to get back, how long this was going to be on her end. But one thing was for certain, she was going to jump. “No, seriously, who invited you?”

“Uh, none of your fucking business,” she breathed.

This was it. She grit her teeth, then grimaced at the demon. “See you in two weeks, fuckface.”

And then she jumped, and everything from the old world vanished into a puff of smoke.


	2. Descending

Well, less a puff of smoke and more a crashing, right into the bristles of trees that smelled like death.

The demon groaned painfully as she rubbed her head, then turned her gaze to the makeshift portal. There was just enough time for her to watch the rip in space and time close back up. Sahjahn figured they were all doomed to die anyways, and in less than a second, that hole was just more trees, rocks, and darkness. She hadn’t expected it to close so quickly. A tiny part of her hoped she could have swept the damned hunter’s legs out from under him, grabbed the babe, and get the hell back out before all of this was over.

But then she turned, and the knife was inches away from her. Holtz gripped it tight. In the other hand, he held the baby close to his chest. His eyes were steel.

“Explain yourself.”

Shift narrowed her eyes. His hands didn’t even shake. He took one look at her, the red lights dancing in her gaze, the faint fangs, the wild look she could never escape, and moved the slightest bit forward. Not backward. Forward. With the grip tightening on his knife.

“A demon, following me in here?” He hissed. “Who sent you? I didn’t see you at the bridge. Are you one of Sahjahn’s? Lilah’s?” He paused, and calculated in his head. “No… Angel’s.” His mouth set in a firm line.

“Put the knife down,” she said.

“You think I would trust a demon,” he hissed. “Really?” Shift was acutely aware of the change in tone of the newly occupied forest. Now that the rift was gone, whatever they had interrupted was going back to its regularly scheduled program. The crashing noises of something particularly large were getting closer, probably because of the baby’s sobbing. The air was muggy and difficult to breathe in, especially for her. She didn’t like the wet. A beetle the size of a fist flew behind Holtz’s head. She knew he was trained enough to realize it, even when his eyes were on her. But he was wasting time in the most dangerous place in the world. “I should kill you where you stand.”

“Kinda hard with a baby in your arms,” she muttered.

“Who sent you?” He demanded.

She leapt forward, grabbed the knife, and had him pinned to a tree before he could blink. The blade stung where it had nicked her hand. She didn’t care how much it bit her. The baby was screeching at the top of his lungs.

“No one sent me.” She growled. “But I’ll be taking that baby, ‘cause, you know, you’re kind of one of the worst things to ever happen to him. And I’d rather not subject him to it if I have any choice in the matter.”

“The worst thing? Do you even know what I intend to do with him?”

She looked up at him defiantly. Really, just his face as it was, was enough to make her want to puke. But knowing what was to come made it worse. “Raise him in lies.”

The man was faster than she realized. One moment he was against the bark that sizzled and ate at whatever it touched, the next he was slashing with another knife he’d hidden in his boot. The hit got her right in the face, and thick gobs of blood and gore flew as she fell back from the shock, the gouge deep and punishing. He’d taken off her nose in a split second. She held the wound, turned to him in a hiss, but he was already off and running into the depths of a mossy swamp. In moments, he was out of sight and she was alone.

Her muscles ached to run after him.

But she knew that would never work.

Holtz was just a human, and she’d killed plenty of humans before. It wasn’t hard. She wasn’t exactly a vampire with a vengeance, or even a demon that could be killed with a quick battle axe to the neck. She would beat him. She would beat anything. If anything, Quor’toth seemed to enhance the sun inside her. 

But she wouldn’t be able to care of a child. Not in this world. Not alone. Not without an adult sized supply of blood keeping her alive. Attacking Holtz had been thoughtless. She’d just… He was right there. Right there, and she could almost touch him, almost save him. But she couldn’t.

She might have lost sight of the two, but the scent remained. She would find them when Holtz had found himself somewhere safe for the night.

Holtz would need to stay alive for now, but that didn’t mean she had to be happy about it.

The loud trembling was growing ever closer. It was impossible to ignore now, and deep enough that the hackles on the back of her neck rose. Whatever the _hell_ that was, it was big. Too big to just ignore. She climbed a tree – the acid ripped at her skin the closer she got to that swamp Holtz and Connor had run off into – but she needed to see what the hell she was going to be up against here. Quor’toth was bad, but it had never met her, right?

She got to the very top, and her breath caught.

The creature was as big as a mountain. It ripped the land to shreds, making cliffsides with its sheer mass. Sometimes a scream, or what could have been words, glided over the wind from the monster’s unearthly maw, but it was lost in the echoes and turned into little more than noise not unlike metal on metal. And it was loud. The thing was thunder.

She caught a glimpse of its face.

It was countless teeth, and countless eyes, and wings, and arms of pillars. It opened its mouth, and a great stream of light and energy unleashed itself onto the landscape and eviscerated whatever was in its path. The plume of energy stopped only a few hundred feet away from where the little fire demon sat on her ass burning in acid.

“Fuck,” she muttered under her breath. “ _Fuck_ ,” she said again, for good measure.

Then she hopped down back to the earth, and began what was about to become her longest hunt ever.

…

Holtz moved quickly. Shift kept up as best she could.

He never stayed in one place, never once lost his grip on the world around him. He was always watching over his shoulder. He was brutal in his tools, too. Whatever broke, he found a way to replace it, and he made sure it would be more violent and devastating than the previous. That knife he had? Lost it in the first few days from the constant acid that seemed to eat away at everything. Made a new one out of some animal’s chitin and stone that he carefully flaked into a razor point. It worked even better, and didn’t burn up.

The both of them were simultaneously learning this world through trial and error. For him, error meant possible death, and it wasn’t to be taken lightly. For her, error meant fucking annoying situations that were steadily wearing her patience.

They learned quickly that those massive bugs weren’t just for show. Their stingers were like rapiers if they pierced through you, long and strong enough that one wrong move would get your bone fractured or your heart impaled. He got stabbed once, was thankful the thing wasn’t poisonous, and that was the last time he let his guard fall.

Shift, on the other hand, was pretty sick of the grimy fuckers that never gave her a moment’s peace. Screeching at the things stabbing her at every opportunity did little to make it stop. She tried lighting herself up, but some of their shells were strong enough to survive that fiery heat. Those, she plucked out of thin air and squished into nothing in her hands. Now _that,_ that was satisfying.

Holtz had the idea to make himself some armor out of bark from one of the few trees that didn’t burn in acid whatever it touched, and that seemed to do the trick. Most of them went for his head, and if they were there, that meant he could see them, and systematically smash them into the ground with his newly acquired club. A demon bone, from a creature long dead. But those leg joints were excellent pounders. She heard him grumble about the weight of carrying it around at night, but a blade would do little against those things. There was a tool for every problem in Quor’toth. The trick was figuring out what worked before you died.

Food was another matter for Holtz, one that was always a point of contention. There smaller creatures in Quor’toth that only survived thanks to the sheer thousands that their kind created with every batch, and the short span of childhood to maturity. But they were hard to catch, like those little furred buggers with the light chitin on their skin and the massive eyes that reminded her of owls.

However, Holtz was patient, and Holtz was smart. He set snares with an experienced hand, and got enough to keep himself and the boy alive. And when he saw one of those creatures swallow a bug whole, he realized that even the beetles were edible if he was desperate enough.

The first night he had enough meat for Connor and himself, he had a fire, and fed the boy with tiny morsels the poor babe could manage. Both of them were far too skinny. It had been days since a proper meal. Shift wished the man would just suck up his pride and accept the kills she brought him in the middle of the night. Anything to stop Connor’s crying; the babe was more important than any caution or pride. But not to Holtz, it seemed. He’d never accept anything, _anything,_ from a demon.

In the middle of the night, the fire crackled down to a low roar, and dark feline bodies the size of bears stalked their way toward the flickering lights. The horns on the creatures were impressively large, but brittle, and left splinters in the flesh of their victims. It was an evolutionary tactic designed to slow the prey down, and have them eventually expire from internal bleeding.

She’d know from experience.

Holtz took on four of them by himself with his club and the babe crying up a storm. It was a close battle – he had made a grave error believing that a fire was worth the chance at being blindsided. One gouged their horns against his leg, and his knife swiftly dug into the base of their skull. One by one, he felled them, each quicker and more efficient than the last.

Shift silently dispatched the other twelve that had intended to ambush him once those others had weakened him. He suffered a mild few splinters up his leg. She had to spit bone shards out with fire over the next week while keeping up with the breakneck pace the hunter set. She couldn’t walk right for a full week thanks to that shit. Even her quick healing wouldn’t accomplish much when there were things inside you keeping the wound from sealing itself shut.

Maybe they were right about Quor’toth being the worst possible realm of existence. Maybe. But even still, she never lost the scent of Holtz. No matter how far he ran. She would follow him to the ends of the earth, no matter many times she cursed the man’s name.

Holtz knew, of course, that he wasn’t alone, no matter how often she made herself scarce. Even if she didn’t leave him kills, he had to. She needed his blood to live.

Every few days, it would be the same fight. He would lie the quickly growing Connor down for the night in the little papoose he’d had fashioned from wood and lined with moss, quench the fire, and then wait. He’d have a newly made knife in hand, and he would sit there, and hope that this time he would end the monster’s terror for good. It was like clockwork. He’d grown to know when she needed him for her nefarious, parasitic diet. And every single time, he would fight her for it to what he wished was his dying breath.

Regardless of what form she took, she could never catch him by surprise. The animal in orange and black that stalked no matter how fast he pushed himself had become synonymous with those red eyes and pointed grin. Holtz had never seen a tiger in person, but he cared little for the animals’ history. All he knew, was that it was a monster, and he would not let it get the best of him.

She would creep up silently in its form during the night, hoping that the chill air and the relative quiet would at least put him somewhat off his guard. She was always disappointed, of course, but she always held futile hope. He would be waiting for her with eyes of steel, his hand gripping the knife tight, his heartrate slow and clear, and his body tensed in preparation for the first sign of that striped hide. She approached from behind, but that didn’t offer much. Even in a form meant to keep her silent, he was ready, and he could hear even the tiniest crack of a branch that wasn’t meant to break.

Their battles were fierce, and quiet. Neither of them wanted to wake Connor, or alert any other creature that might have been skulking around for food. But Holtz abhorred everything Shift was. He wasn’t just sit there and take it. God forbid he _ever_ consort with a demon again, after Sahjahn.

A demon that fed off of blood but wasn’t a vampire? He’d heard of the type before, but not something like her. She was something he didn’t understand, and that made him wary. Every fight, he analyzed as much as he possibly could. Mortal wounds healed like they were nothing in that fire, no matter how grievous. Blood red eyes reflected like a cats’ in the light of the lopsided moon, and brightened after each feeding. Rows of shark teeth – no molars, or any human ones left – sharper and crueler than a vampire’s, never retracted.

None of it pointed toward anything he knew. No, he didn’t know anything about her. But he knew he hated her, and that was enough.

Their fights always ended the same, with Shift wounded beyond measure, and Holtz missing around a cup of his blood. She could have done worse, he knew that from the way she held herself back, but instead she drank gently and drained him of only what she seemed to need.

He knew exactly what she was doing. She was a crafty one, that bitch. She knew that he was needed as a perverted blood bank to keep her alive. If she didn’t need human blood, she wouldn’t have continued this fight every night so desperately. She disgusted him. It was only a matter of time before he figured out how to kill her. When that time came, he would relish the relief of only having to deal with the rest of Quor’toth.

What he didn’t understand, though, was why she never went for his precious Steven. If not to feed off of him, then to steal him away. She had shown such interest in him before, yet now she made no moves. She did nothing. He disliked the lack of logic. Demons without their own internal logic were demons more difficult to kill.

…

Shift followed the two of them relentlessly, and months passed. She saw the hunter grow thinner and stronger, and she saw Connor begin to grow up. He changed from a squishy potato into a thin stick of a baby. Achingly thin. They never had enough food.

When the boy started talking, Holtz had to train him when to shut up. The pipes on that kid were huge. He blathered so loud once that scores of creatures, running on two legs with spikes on their arms and natural, extendable scaled armor descended on the three of them before Holtz could even tell the child to be silent. The fight, again, was difficult for Holtz, but he had no idea how just much the demon was warding off only a few hundred feet away. He hacked and slashed with a sword he’d fashioned out of bone and wood, and she chewed and tore until there was nothing left to chew and tear anymore. The poison in those spikes proved near deadly for the man. He was fighting it off for days afterward, while still trying to take care of Connor. Shift got those spikes right through her numerous times as well, but that poison had no effect on a creature whose blood burned everything to dust. Her real worry now, was figuring out how to get the man to accept even a little help when he was on death’s door.

For the first time since they’d entered the plane, Holtz accepted the prey she left that night. Not for himself, but for the child that cried in hunger and couldn’t afford to skip another meal. He never offered a word of thanks. He never even addressed her existence in the presence of Connor. But for once, he cooked up the vermin and ate it without a word. That was a win in her book. She could rest knowing that he was being taken care of.

They kept moving.

Holtz realized the swamp was no place for a human to stay. The moss that littered its depths was more brutal than the acidic bark in the forest proper, and the wet came with its own horrors. Gelatinous oozes that hid away in the puddles of muck and filth had Holtz almost lose a leg when he tried walking through it. It was pure luck those shark-like teeth didn’t entirely eviscerate him down to the ankle. He lost one of his leather boots and was happy for it. After that, he paid attention to the scent of the water and where those things came from. Those creatures were like pitcher plants. He knew where to stand from the sickly sweet smell; he’d need all his senses if he were to survive this hazardous landscape.

Shift’s shoulders shivered in revulsion. She was grateful that she kept to the trees and out from the watery puddles below. Not the slugs, or the oozes, the water. Out of all the things in Quor’toth she hated, it was still the fucking water she hated more than anything. Plain, simple water. 

He turned to the cliffs.

Shift already knew that the mountains existed from all the times she had climbed the trees. Holtz, on the other hand, walked right into it. She wasn’t even sure if he knew about the giant fuck-off titans that roamed the landscape. She was convinced that he thought those occasional tremors were earthquakes, that perhaps the dimension itself was slowly breaking apart. She wouldn’t put it past the world to be unstable, but the truth was something far too close to home and far more dangerous if left overlooked.

So when Holtz found the beginnings of a steep incline out of the trees and began to climb, she almost relished the opportunity to what he saw of Mr. Cthulhu prancing around out there. Turns out, he took it the same way he took most of the things in Quor’toth. With gritted teeth and a resigned acceptance. It was underwhelming.

Holtz made one of the holes in the side of the cliff his home for the coming months. It surprised her that he would suddenly decide to become sedentary, but she could see why. The place he’d chosen was ideal for its security. There was nothing behind him but stone wall, which meant he only needed to worry about the wide front facing entrance. He could see the vastness of the world below him for the horror it was, and know that he would never be snuck up on. All around him, large swooping creatures with antenna – Shift had taken to calling them alien moth bitches - took advantage of the cliff sides and caught those massive bugs in their jaws, crunching the chitin like hyenas crunched bone. Sometimes they came back from the forest and woods with bigger monsters. Sometimes they were child sized, sometimes adult human sized.

Holtz made sure the open entrance was closed by wooden spikes and furs, just in case. He could never be too careful.

This proved a little difficult for the fire demon that still needed his blood, of course, but she made it work. She still took only what she needed, and managed to stretch it out to a full week before she’d come strolling into the man’s home to fight him tooth and nail again. As always, it would be in the middle of the night, Connor would be asleep, and neither of them had any intention of waking him any time soon. It was a regular bonified routine for the two of them. One he wasn’t happy about, but then it wasn’t exactly all flowers for her.

Sometimes, Shift would roost on the grassy perch above their cliffside home and just listen to them. The man often talked with the kid while he worked on fur and leather clothes that broke apart just as quickly as he made them. Or, his hands would work on sinew, stretching out the lines for crossbow, eating jerky and the few bits of flora that stung his mouth but had no other negative effects.

At first, these conversations were pretty one-sided. Connor was still struggling with how to speak, thanks to Holtz. But now that they had a less precarious position, he was coming right out of his shell. Sometimes he would point to things, Holtz would tell them what they were, and he would giggle like he had just been told the mother of all jokes. They’d repeat this for hours.

But sometimes, Holtz would just talk, and Shift would listen to the half truths she knew that Connor had been raised on.

“Your name was Connor, son,” he would say in that soft, hissing, monotone voice of his. “That is what Angelus named you. He was a vampire, a vampire that tried to change his name and his ways by acquiring a soul, and thinking that made up for the sins of his damned self. But he will always be a twisted creature. He killed my wife, my daughter, in the most evil ways you can imagine. And you, my dear boy, you are the best thing that has ever happened to me. And because of that, your name is Steven Franklin Thomas Holtz. Because I refuse to force you to take the name a killer believes you deserve.”

“Steven!” Connor would cry out, because despite his difficulties he already knew his fake name.

“Exactly, my dear boy. Come, let me tell you a story. We’ll talk all about that villain of your father. And we’ll talk about what we’re going to do to him the day we get out of here. And we will get out of here, you and I. One day.” His Steven wouldn’t be old enough to remember this conversation. Holtz was going to start him young. The understanding of Angel as a monster would need to be ingrained into the boy from a tender age, if he had any chance of getting him to accomplish what Holtz himself could not. The hunter did not yet have a plan, but he knew it would include careful manipulation. He loved the boy. He would be his masterpiece. He must have him believe that whatever he set out to do, would be his own mission.

“Dada!” Connor got up on unsteady feet, and hobbled his way to Holtz with some difficulty. They were his first steps.

Holtz went quiet.

“Yes,” he muttered, softly. “I am your dada. Not him. And I’ll keep you safe. But you will have to learn. We will both need to learn, if we are to survive here. You can walk now, it seems. Tomorrow, we’ll start some basic training. And then, perhaps, we’ll set some traps, and eat good meat in coming week. Get some sleep. You’ll need it.”

Shift quietly watched another one of those titans walk along the horizon and destroy everything in its path. The moon was hidden behind it, trapping everything else in a darkness that no human eye would be able to see. But Holtz had the fire going, and he had his gaze settled on the open side of the cave knowing full well that dinner time was approaching. Not once, not ever, would he let his guard down in this world. He would not let the demon take him. Not willingly. Each and every time, he would fight her to his last.

When she slinked into the cave, the fire was coals, but he was awake. He rarely slept. Never, when he knew she was coming.

“You know what is going to happen when you try this,” the man muttered. Connor turned in his sleep.

Her eyebrow raised. He never deigned her with talk. Treating her like an animal made her easier to deal with in his eyes.

Maybe the man was growing tired of not being able to talk to anyone other than his “son”.

“I can’t survive without it,” she growled. It was useless to mince words, to play games. Fuck, she missed the sound of laughter. She was trapped in hell with a man that didn’t know the meaning of the word humor.

“You are an invulnerable creature. Surely you can starve without dying.”

She quirked a grin. He was a crafty one. But no amount of craft would make up for the strength she possessed. He had to know that by now. It was stupid to waste energy fighting her. “I’m not sharing my weaknesses with you.”

“I’ll find a way to kill you, one day.”

“As soon as I can, Holtz, I’m going to kill ya too. Don’t you worry.”

“Why would you? I take care of the boy. And you care about him, don’t you?”

“More than you know.”

His eyes glittered coldly. There was the other reason he still breathed. She could see that look, though, of confusion, of wariness. He still didn’t know who she was. And she wanted to keep it that way. It was better not to ask questions that opened up a whole can of temporal worms. There were so many questions that not even s _he_ had the answer to. But he was still going to ask. And he did.

“Who are you that you care about him?”

“Yeah, not gonna answer that.”

“You could be one of those cultists that tried to have him for yourself. You won’t, you know. I’d kill him before I’d let you have him.”

“We both don’t want him dead, bub.” She crossed her arms. With a schadenfreude level of satisfaction, she watched him flinch at the movement. “But I can’t raise a kid. And you can.”

“So the minute he’s ripe for the plucking, you take him? And when is that?”

“Connor isn’t some object.”

“His name is Steven.”

“Fuck you. Connor is a person. And if it weren’t for your bullshit, he could have had a normal life. But he isn’t gonna have that, now is he?” She placed a hand on her hip, her nose wrinkling. “You caused this, Holtz. You made this a problem when you teamed up with that time travelling fuckwad of a demon. I can’t do anything but keep him safe, and keep him from you when the time comes. So why don’t you just make this easier for the both of us, let me have your blood, and I’ll be gone.”

He went quiet again. If there was one thing she hated about Holtz, it was that he analyzed way too much. She was content with him knowing as little as possible. Hell, she avoided Connor ever seeing her face, just in case. Better she was a ghost. Sure, there were benefits to fighting back against Holtz’s brainwashing from the beginning. But she didn’t want the child associating her with his childhood, that would just make things a hell of a lot more confusing later down the line, not to mention… Wrong, she felt. She wasn’t going to do that to him. She couldn’t do that to _herself._

But Holtz, she couldn’t help but be in contact with. And he was too good. He could track anything, and no matter her never electing to explain herself, she felt it was only a matter of time before he pieced _something_ together. She was dreading that day. She did not want to have to explain to the guy why exactly her allegiance lay where it did. She didn’t think anybody was going to be very appreciative of that. 

“You aren’t like any demon I’ve ever come across,” he finally said.

“There are a lot of them, I’m not sure if you noticed.”

“But there is depth behind your eyes. You’re older than I give you credit for. Acting like a child, when you’re anything but. How old are you? A thousand? Two?”

She stalked forward. “That doesn’t matter.” Connor was talking in his sleep, and making it very difficult to focus on the prize here. While she tried to regain her bearings, Holtz brandished his knife and prepared for battle.

Her stomach rumbled. She was growing weaker every day she starved herself. But the hunter didn’t have to know that. If Holtz knew how close she cut it every time they fought for that blood, then perhaps he’d try to fight a little harder, and see if he could make it out a week longer before she collapsed without the energy to go on.

They fought, again. Shift won, as she always did. But just as before, she was left bruised and battered. This time with an arm hacked off for good measure. She held onto the stump with gritted teeth as she made her retreat down the sheer rock face. Behind her, she could hear the man heaving as he tried to catch his breath. She never left him particularly broken, not like he did her. But she’d still had to pin him down. Sometimes the fights made subduing him a case of making less wounds than no wounds at all.

Sometimes she thought of making this just a little easier on herself. She could show him peace. She could get along with Holtz. Work together raising that child. He’d surely benefit from her. They wouldn’t have to fight anymore. She could just live knowing that kid would grow up without the cruelty and lies she knew that man would subject him to. She could show him kindness, screw the weirdness of him knowing her from youth.

But that was a fucking pipe dream and a half, and who was she kidding? She’d never be able to swallow her disgust, working with a monster like that. He hated her. And she wouldn’t have it any other way. There was her pride on the line, but more than that, there was the lies. She knew the truth. He knew enough that he would never let her around the boy. She was pretty sure the only reason he wasn’t running anymore was because she wasn’t interacting with his precious stolen child.

And she was right. Holtz wasn’t sure why that demon never talked to his child. Through their training, hunting, and nomadic movement in the hazardous landscape, the creature always kept her distance. She was a she-beast more powerful than any he had come across, but the thing he feared most about her was how much she might know. He was intent on training his son to be the killer that he himself could not be – Holtz know that he himself might never find a way out of this godforsaken place. He was intent on raising him right – with the knowledge of Angel for what he was.

But this beast called him Connor. She called the man a liar. It was safe to say, she was not on his side. On the contrary, it looked as though perhaps Angel had an ace up his sleeve all along.

But then she turned around and claimed she was no one’s toy.

Holtz knew what it was like to be a pawn in the games of others, and he understood at least they had that in common. But he lack of allegiance confused him.

And then it angered him that he bothered to deign her existence with this much thought. There were more important things to be thinking about. Steven needed to be trained, he needed to learn to survive, and he needed a good wash in the pool.


	3. Growing Pains

Holtz kept watch while his toddler of a boy played in the water. The creatures that used the watering hole knew to stay away. Those less intelligent would soon have their faces carved with knives and arrows. All around him, he had his arsenal at his fingertips. If there was one thing he was on high alert for, it was taking his boy down to the water to get more to boil and a quick bath. Steven might have been enjoying himself immensely, but every noise put the man on high alert.

Shift was watching too. Holtz, mostly, but also on the titans overhead. From her position atop a tree, she could clearly see that massive giant in the distance setting the world ablaze. The ground trembled, just a bit. Just enough to remind them that they were never truly safe. He was far away enough not to care, for now. But eventually that monster would make it over to their cliffs and Holtz would have to move on. Shift was prepared to move too. Even if the man tried his best to get as many feet away from her as possible, her sense of smell would never lose him.

Like now, she could already scent those cat-bear monsters with their splintering tusks approaching from the south. She watched their forms flickering in and out of the trees with narrowed eyes. God, she hoped Holtz would see them soon and get Connor out of the fucking way. She had it about to here with the fucking splinters, and she was not in the mood save them from those things. She would take those _poison scrotum velociraptors_ over them any day of the week. Hell, pair her up with that Titan, she’d probably be able to take it down given enough time and blood.

That almost sounded like an idea to her. She watched the titan’s progress with renewed interest. Taking down something like that? It would really give her a chance to push herself. Say what you will about Quor’toth, it gave her a chance to see just how far her strength could go. 

“Papa, look!” Connor held up a fish with far too many teeth and laughed before bashing it against the rock. Holtz raised his head in alarm. Bulbous-eyed monsters with dagger teeth in rows upon rows attacked the child, trying to bite his flesh the way a piranha might eviscerate their prey. Holtz hadn’t even noticed, his eyes were so busy on outside threats. But the child was just sitting there, laughing. He thought the fish were playing. The teeth couldn’t even break his skin.

Holtz held his breath. The boy was astounding. The strength and invulnerability he possessed, even at this young, was promising. The cogs turned in his head, as they had been ever since he flung them into this world.

This boy, he would triumph where he would fail.

As soon as the boy could hold something in his hand, they began to spar.

Really, though, for Holtz, sparring began as soon as he could feel the hit when the boy knocked him in the leg with a stick. The boy found it hilarious, bopping at whatever he could reach. Holtz was grateful his chitin armor kept him safe from the little bugger that thought he could take him down with a swift hit to the kneecaps or groin.

He had to teach him to fight defensively, and smart. Not just these teasing games of his. His Steven thought it was all a game, of course. And Holtz did feed into that in order to keep his attention. But the boy also had a feel for these things, and the hunter tapped into that. Holtz could see it plain in the way the boy adopted his stances and looked to his father for guidance in the same breath that he made every effort to knock him on his ass. He truly was his Angel’s child, the man realized with chagrin. At least, not in the ways that mattered. Holtz was forever grateful that the boy ate the same meals he did.

But he was still an unknown. Holtz never forgot that. 

Shift watched the two of them duke it out often. She didn’t have anything better to do, and watching Connor grow up brought a sense of worry and sweetness that she couldn’t turn her eyes away from. It was difficult to explain just what it did to her, but she knew she had to keep track, and keep him safe.

Her stomach churned every time Holtz went too hard on the kid – she couldn’t help it, it was a gut reaction of hers seeing any child in pain. But the man didn’t even trust him with a knife yet, he had nothing to defend himself. He was just a little thing, all skin and bones, not even that much muscle yet. That would be built up in time, though. Sooner, rather than later, seeing as Holtz was desperate to mold the kid into a killing machine. Connor was a blank canvas to man, an opportunity, and anyone could see that. He used the boy’s loyalty to his full advantage. With every story, every session, every mistake that Holtz could blame on the eponymous Angel that had “banished” them to this plane, Connor was trapped a little further in the lie.

For now all she could do was silently cheer from her perch far up the tree every time Connor managed to knock the man in the groin at just the right angle to earn a pained grunt. It almost made up for the brainwashing.

Each night, she would listen in to their talks about the hunts they would do the next day. As Connor got older, he got louder and brasher and more excited about the world around him. Hunting became a coveted sport that he wished his “father” would bring him on, or even try on his own. Holtz knew the child could survive most of the things he went after – that much was clear from the times Connor had picked fights with whatever could get into the camp. … And those times he wandered off on his own to look for food when he thought Holtz wasn’t looking. But Connor did not have that inherent trait of looking before acting, and so hunts would be left until he was capable of that.

The man had to teach him, and Connor desperately needed to learn as soon as he could, or he would try his luck one day with that fuck-off titan burninating the landscape. Then not even Shift would be able to save him. Five seconds in, and he’d find that maybe his skin couldn’t withstand energy blasts of that caliber. The kid was a fire-cracker with whatever he did, and he couldn’t grow up fast enough.

At least he learned fast. Especially fast when his sense of smell, hearing and sight began to rapidly heighten as he got older. He lived to please Holtz, and if he could spot something that not even his father could, then it was mission accomplished to him. The pride he felt when his father gave him praise was like nothing else. Well, except when he managed to take down something even bigger than before. Shift was counting on her hands how many creatures he’d managed to kill before Holtz even gave him the knife. She ran out of fingers.

Sometimes they would spend hours of valuable time fighting in the light of the midafternoon sun. Neither would rest, keeping each other up in constant guard in the same way that Quor’toth did. They laughed, they gasped and panted, and they struck at each other however they could. Connor was so strong even as a child that sometimes Holtz was the weaker link in their fights. It was the skill that kept him a cut above his “son”. Connor sometimes got so excited, Holtz needed to be the one on his toes to keep that child from seriously harming him. The kid didn’t seem to understand how fragile humans could be.

When they slept, Shift spent her nights patrolling at the base of the cliff to make sure none of the larger creatures made their way to their cozy little hovel in the middle of hell. There were many things out there just waiting to prey on them. Maybe Holtz could have taken them down on his own if not for her. But she was here, and she had nothing better to do, and she sure as hell was going to protect that boy. Softening them up be damned, if she wasn’t here for this, then what else was she here for? She had only one priority in her mind here. Anything else in her head had to make room for that.

…

Quor’toth did strange things to demons that didn’t belong in this plane of existence. Entropy towards corruption hit her in a way she wasn’t prepared for. This wasn’t something that had ever been mentioned to her before all of this madness, and Connor wasn’t affected by it, personality wise, but she could see his strength growing a lot faster than it should. To her, it was barely noticeable until it was prominent enough that eventually she couldn’t ignore anymore. Banging inside her head was the voice of the dimension itself, the pull of something egging her on to break and destroy. Quor’toth wanted her to be a monster. It wanted her to be everything she was capable of.

She laughed when that pull got strong enough to be a tangible, coherent voice in her head. It was the exact same call of the void that she had experienced when she’d first become a demon, first experienced that level of power and ache for destruction. That kind of power just aching to burst in horrendous, evil ways. Feeling it again was almost refreshing. Child’s play to tamp down on. It could do what it pleased, but she knew her goal here, and she wasn’t some newly made welp here to give into an amplified base instinct. That voice in her head was something she felt every second of every waking moment. It was just louder here. No amount of demonic magic eating away at her was going to stop what she’d set out to do.

But then she could kind of understand why this world seemed so evil. A voice calling out to her for a few years was nothing in comparison to who knew how many millennia this world had existed. Like water rubbing stones on a shore, eventually the edges were worn away and everyone learned to accept the evilness this dimension wanted you to have. No wonder the monsters here were as rabid as they were. It wasn’t just survival. They wanted to torture. They wanted to suffer. And they lurked at the chance to do just that.

And so, very night over the next few years, and every day, she kept a careful watch, and in doing so, she grew feral in the wilderness, and she grew attuned to the world in ways she never had before.

In recent years before the dimensional travel, Shift had gone soft. She could admit that. It wasn’t something she particularly cared about either way. It came out of a life that allowed it. But this constant barrage of creatures that wanted to attack her, kill her, and eat her (not necessarily in that order) meant that she had to be on her guard. At all times.

She had to expend that energy that usually stayed locked up inside her just mouldering away, and it was exhilarating. This is what she was meant to do. She was reaching the outer limits of her power. As much as she complained, she could just feel those muscles within her that had never been worked before. In some ways, this world was good for her. In others, she could feel her goal trying to slip out of her fingers.

She held it tight when even the first hint of that ugly thing reared its head. She what she was here to do, she kept repeating to herself. She knew who she was. Even when her reflection showed an entirely different beast. 

Was her hair always that ragged and puffed? Why did it bristle when she got nervous? Her clothes were still whole, that magic never ceased, but did they have to be so grimy? Were her teeth always that long, and jagged? No, her eyes hadn’t been slitted like a cat’s when she’d entered the rip. But now they changed with the light, though her vision remained the same. And in her tiger form, she had become even more unrecognizable. With fangs that popped out of her maw, fur that seemed more like porcupine quills razored down her flank, and muscles that bulged under the sinew and skin, she gathered she was becoming a local. She could fight against that Quor’toth call all she wanted, but she couldn’t change what she had physically become.

Man, she hoped this wasn’t permanent. At least a regular tiger could hide in a zoo. What the fuck would you even do with a saber-toothed one? Sure it was cool as fuck, but utility-wise? Fuck that noise.

Holtz stopped talking to her when she showed up. There was no point in trying to learn something from a beast, he reasoned. So the two fought like wild animals, she won with the marks to show for it, and then she returned to being the pair of red eyes stalking them in a never ending overwatch. She had become just another thing that bumped in the night. As long as she never antagonized his “son”, as long as she never even looked at the boy, he would treat her like the bear boars, or the slime slugs, or the velociraptors. Another unintelligent enemy that wanted him dead, one that Connor never had to know about.

Until, one day, he did.

“What’s that smell?” He anxiously asked his father, his small form pressed into the wall of their cliffside home. It was the morning after another attack, and Holtz was hiding the few marks leftover from their scuffle. He had fought his damndest against that shebeast, but he’d lost again. A cup of blood was missing, and the bites and scratches of her trials beforehand still stung. At least she had left limping on one leg, tainted blood splashing on acidic flora. He was beginning to wonder just what it would take to kill her.

“What do you mean, son? What smell?”

The young boy pursed his lips together. He was trying to figure out how to bring this up, since his father never said a word on the subject. But that smell of blood was back again. It was always here. Every week. Holtz smelled like blood too. And with that blood, was the scent of fire, smoke, ash, cinnamon, and sweet, the scent of something that he knew intrinsically wasn’t another animal. Now, the kid wasn’t crazy. It was right there on his nose, and his nose was never wrong. If his father was in danger, then he wanted to help. But what was driving him crazy, was that his father never talked about it. If it weren’t for Connor’s nose, he might have even gotten away with it. “You know. The one that keeps showing up.”

The man looked at the presently lit fire and maintained a carefully neutral expression. “There is no smell, Steven.”

Connor was taken aback, because it was so obvious. The scent of blood was strong enough that even his father should be able to pick it up. It trailed from his own father, along the paper-thin trail that they used to climb up and down, and then right off down the edge of the cliff when it got far enough. He could scent it at least a hundred feet out. “It was here before, too, last week. I keep smelling it around. It was down at the water hole. And by the field. And the swamp.”

“It must have come in from the wind.”

“It couldn’t have come from the wind. The door’s been closed the whole night.”

“Perhaps your nose is playing tricks on you.”

“But I heard something last night too!” He was adamant. There had been a noise, just a small one. He swore that there had been someone else in the room. But when he opened his eyes, it had just been his father watching the fire with a knife in his hand, as though nothing had happened. It was infuriating. “We should go hunting after it if it’s tracking us like this!”

“It was your imagination, Steven.”

Connor gave his father a quizzical look, because he knew he was lying. Even as a young child, he knew. They’d been around each other too long for him not to know what it meant when his father looked at him with those stone cold eyes. He was watching the boy like he watched prey He wanted him to drop it. This wasn’t up for discussion. And if Connor pressed too far, he might get a slap upside the head for it.

And yet, he pushed his luck. “But, dad-“

“It was your imagination.”

Shift listened to their argument slowly taper off into silence from her perch above their hovel, her heart beating out of its chest. She hadn’t been careful enough. It was only a matter of time before the kid found her, and she wasn’t ready for that. God, no, she wasn’t ready for that. She could deal with Holtz’s eventual temper tantrum when the two found each other, Holtz was nothing to her, less than nothing. Just a food source. She didn’t even really care if he lived or died. She just needed Connor safe, and secure, and mentally sound.

But that in itself was the problem. She couldn’t just introduce herself to a fucking five year old. She wasn’t sure she could ever introduce herself. Imagine telling him who she was. Oh hey, nice to meet you, yeah I know exactly who you are, everything about you, Holtz is a fucking liar, your real dad is actually a shameless goody two shoes that drives people like me up the wall, don’t fuck your pseudo mom she’s actually an evil end-of-the-world old one hiding in her body, don’t kill yourself please, oh by the way in the future you and I – she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t even think it.

Not to mention, there’s a likely chance he wouldn’t believe her. Like, a r _eally_ likely one. He didn’t have any reason to. Whatever scent of his own she might have retained was gone by now. It had been far too long. And he probably wouldn’t have recognized it anyways.

She was at a loss here. Really, she hadn’t thought any of this through. This whole situation was fucked, and no choice she made would be a good one. She couldn’t intervene without making things infinitely worse and more complicated. What was she even supposed to do anymore?

Nothing, she figured. Just watch. Wait for this whole thing to be over. Wait for him to be old enough that maybe when he punched his way out of this dimension, she’d be able to head him off at the pass. There had to be something she could do when they got out of this place that would change his fate enough to set him down a road that didn’t lead to death.

Fuck fate.

…

It was a temperate climate most of the way up the mountain, with shelter and holes to hide whenever those alien moth bitches got too close. The boar things couldn’t get up, neither could the scrotum lizards, so it was altogether an ideal spot to raise a child. Well, as ideal as Quor’toth could be. That was the problem with the worst of the demonic realms. There was no such thing as true safety here. There was also the problem of getting resources up to the cliffside, and the odd creature that would somehow make its way up the thin trail. And then when you compound that with Holtz disliking a sedentary lifestyle after years of being attacked for it, you get an antsy hunter just waiting for the right reason to leave.

What sealed the deal for Holtz was the discovery of a grub colony growing too close. They hid in the swamps and under bushes and were nearly impossible to see until you were practically stepping on them. He’d seen what their spit could do to an unsuspecting bug, and he never wanted to end up on the ground as that creature wormed its way over to envelop him in its ooze. And with only the faint chewing of their mandibles signaling their existence, it was a safety hazard for him, let alone the boy that was still having difficulties thinking before acting. He could just picture his Steven going out when he wasn’t around, stumbling upon hundreds of the things, and then not even his seemingly invulnerable skin would be able to withstand the level of acid those creatures possessed.

And then the titan got to close, and that was the end of it. To the summit of the cliff they went.

Holtz packed up what they had and prepared the two of them to go. Connor got his own backpack of supplies to seem useful, though Holtz carried the brunt of their equipment. The boy talked endlessly about tactics, a newly acquired knife in his hand that he held as though it were the most important thing in the world. He was old enough to have one, though that was being called into question with how manic and excitable he had grown, almost too much for Holtz to handle. Everything he saw was an opportunity to have fun, if not a complete death trap. In fact, as they slowly made their climb, he was eying those six-winged mothman monsters and their giant antenna with a mission in mind. They got into their fair share of fights with them on the cliffside, but the kid couldn’t shake the idea that there was an opportunity there. If he could just get the jumping off angle right on that cliff edge…

But then his attention snapped to one of the fourteen thousand other things he could be doing.

At one point he was begging Holtz to take another look one of the cave systems they just left. The man already knew what the boy really wanted. Those frog weasel shits Shift had been dealing with off and on behind them were on the kid’s radar and he was convinced that with a little more food he could get one on his side. He kept trying to discuss the merits of a pet in the way that all kids do, but Holtz would hear none of it. They didn’t have the food, nor the time, nor the luck in case that thing decided to kill them all in their sleep. The kid went quiet after the man snapped particularly loud, and the two of them continued in silence.

The kid was starting to wonder if he had really set something off by bringing up that scent. Usually when he did something stupid, Holtz would send him to bed without dinner and give him a swift reprimand. He did do a lot of stupid things. But this time, everything was just boiling up under the surface and Holtz wasn’t addressing any of it. It was like he didn’t want it to be acknowledged as real. That scent didn’t exist as long as they didn’t talk about it. His dad talked about everything with the kid, taught him everything, never once pulled punches, but now he was hiding something. It didn’t make sense.

Connor was sharpening a wooden stick and eying the cliff sides behind them, when he tilted his head up in alarm. He didn’t say anything. But Shift knew. She hid behind the rock with heart beating far too fast. The kid was getting good. Too good. At this rate, she’d have to give them a wider berth or she’d be found out by him in no time. She was _not_ about to introduce herself to a five year old.

In the next week, she kept as far back as she could without losing their scent. This time, she paid attention to whenever they were upwind. Connor could smell her, and he knew she wasn’t supposed to be here. Maybe his scattered brain would help her out this time. As long as he was preoccupied, a strange scent was just another interesting thing to think about in hell. Go on, kid. Focus on the moths. You want to ride the moths. These are not the demons you are looking for.

The air got hotter the further they travelled away from that massive cliff edge, and the monsters changed their brand of deadly. One demon in particular was a creature after her own heart. This thing was like a salamander with fangs, far too many legs, and a hardon for flaming the shit out of everything it came in contact with. After the fireworks died down in the initial attack, Holtz splashed enough water on it from their supplies to get a few more hits in and down it, hacking the whole head off that was almost as big as him and coming away from the fight with a few burns up his arms.

Connor did his own fair share of work with the stabbing, but burning was something new. He’d experienced pain before, but this was sudden, sharp, and gripped his whole leg in fire. He cried out in surprised agony when it happened, and Shift’s muscles tensed from the hiding place behind a collection of rocks. Even a half mile away, she still wanted to run to him. But she couldn’t. So she just sat there, her teeth piercing through her lip, with her head in her hands.

It took him a while – she says a while, more like a day or two – for the poor kid to heal back up to an orderly state. He nursed his wounds the same way that Holtz had raised him to – biting his teeth and taking it like a man. She could see the pain in his eyes, even as he treated it like a war wound from a successful hunt. He wanted to cry.

Shift hated Holtz. She hated him with every fibre of her being.

After that misadventure, the hunter created a more reasonable method of taking down that beast that didn’t involve losing half their drinking water or risking nerve damage from burns. Namely, not disturbing it whenever possible – it was easy to spot, really, he wasn’t sure how it had gotten the slip on them before. And if you took _it_ by surprise and snapped its neck before it ever got the chance to set all of the dusty shrubbery ablaze, along with all your supplies, then that was even better.

That still did not exactly end well. In the process of training Connor to do a quieter take down, it had all gone horribly wrong. Holtz had everything prepared, the battle axe, the water just in case, and a recently healed up and overly excited Connor, and was sneaking right up on the thing when the kid couldn’t help but ask a loud question because his brain was thinking of a hundred things at once. That was a big mistake.

The boy learned his lesson _very_ quickly when this caused yet another run in with a beast that was fully aware and very, very hungry. There was a lot of fire, a lot of swearing, and a lot of panic until Holtz _finally_ managed to take it down with a battle axe and a single hope in hell. But the fire was still roaring around them. Holtz was covered in it. It was surprising how quickly he went from the well put together manipulator into a high pitched, shrieking man trying to tell his kid to use the water, the water, he said the WATER! THE WATER STEVEN, PLEASE.

Shift had to hold in the laughter seeing the clueless kid pissing on the bitter old man because they had run out of water. It was kind of poetic, in a way.

Speaking of water, that was dangerous commodity to have less of, and Holtz was well aware of this the further they travelled from the swamp. He made sure there was always a stream nearby, no way was he venturing out without one of the few things they needed to survive. The water would be fine boiled for now, but the stream itself was growing thinner. The underbrush was becoming fewer and far between. He kept a careful eye on it. Shift scented the air often as the wind patterns changed. But even she wasn’t prepared for where they eventually ended up.

A desert. And fuck, was it hot. Absolute paradise.

For Shift, at least. She was lapping that shit up, honestly. On some days it felt like it was a maybe 40 Celsius, and she was soaking up the sun like a bearded dragon on a heating pad. She traveled her own path half a kilometer out from the two of them hugging the stream, and she made sure that half a click put her straight in the middle of the wasteland. Out there, the temp went even further, as the sun baked the sand that somehow always found its way into her shoes. She was in heaven. Nothing much could survive out here, which meant all she had to care about was if the sand around her looked like it was breaking out into black heads. Those hive-minded beetle fucks were a dead giveaway if you knew what to look for. Black shells and mandibles that could cut bone, but easy to kill with stomachs that offered little protection. Other than that, it was just the occasional rumble of a murder worm, and she was good. Quor’toth was a breeze if you didn’t need water.

That façade of a father and son duo weren’t doing too hot, pun intended, but they had also found their own ways to deal with the heat. Now that they were far away from the disease ridden world of the swamps of the precarious nature of the cliffs, they had set themselves up a little hut by their stream that offered them just enough cover from the sun to keep them from baking to a crisp. Holtz didn’t intend to stay there for long, but that was nothing new. There was a small valley only a kilometer away with enough wood and stone for whatever they needed. Granted, it was filled with vicious monstrous centipede fucks that seemed utterly intent on ruining your day, but their chitin was strong and the sinew provided excellent string for crossbows. They were a hot commodity.

During the hot days, they would build and sharpen their tools. But during the evenings, Holtz would teach Connor with increasingly more insane tasks that no sane human would ever give to a child.

And Connor aspired to the challenge to please him. Holtz was very good at trying to get people to please him. And very good at making that boy go out into the middle of the dessert to bring back various materials regardless of how much it seemed like a suicide mission. The kid never showed hesitation even when he should have, never even so much as blinked at the task, instead peering up at his father with trusting eyes and an aching itch to prove himself. And that just made it so much worse.

Shift followed Connor every time. He would spend days out there in the middle of nowhere, fighting beetles, staying away from the telltale rattles of the worms below that could eat you whole. Every burn he suffered, every day he went without food and water, all of them would be worth it in his eyes if he could go back to Holtz with the shrub or beetle chitin the man wanted. He pushed himself to the brink for that man. Shift watched the days that Connor went in the heat and nearly killed himself as he sweated out the last of his water supply. She watched all of his close calls, all of his fights that were entirely one-sided. She watched what Holtz subjected him to for his own stupid mission. And every day Shift would make sure that murder worm didn’t go in his direction, or would carefully guide him toward what food and water she could find. And he would never even question it, because she was good at making it look natural, and he was loopy from heat exhaustion. Pointing things out wasn’t interacting with Connor, was it? She never spoke to him, never got close enough for him to pick up her scent. Never even spent the night near his campsite.

She went too long with blood and it was a struggle to get Holtz to giver her some when she got back. She had to drag herself back, panting and shaking, weak from hunger. But it was worth it. Because this wasn’t survival anymore. This was training to become a killing machine. She knew that, and Connor had to know that, on some level. But the kid thought the world of his fake dad. He also thought the world of being the strongest thing around. He’d take his medicine without complaint, no matter how far it pushed him.

She was starting to wonder if perhaps she really should have interfered earlier. He was only six and he was a soldier. It wasn’t fair. God, it wasn’t fair.

These travels continued ceaselessly over the next few years.

Holtz always seemed to find a place, made it almost homey, used the biome to its advantage and stretched the boy to the limits of his abilities, and then there would be a sudden reason they needed to go. It usually involved the impending doom they would experience if they stayed, because Connor thought it was a brilliant idea to antagonize and kill everything he came across. He’d even taken to taking a few trophies when it suited him. There was a growing collection of bug legs in his pockets.

He had also thrown himself off the cliff more than once, just to see if his moth grabbing theory would prove correct. Turns out, yes, at the right angle he could absolutely tackle one of those things and possibly control it with its antenna. No, he didn’t know how to aim, nor did he succeed at even getting close. And yes, he did give Holtz a heart attack when he came out of the forest below the cliffs swinging like fucking Tarzan on a vine for dear life, a horde of those boar monsters hot on his tail. He added some of their ears to his increasing collection. At least one of the three of them got something positive out of that experience. Shift for once, was in Holtz’s camp. The kid was too ballsy for his own fucking good. And that whole stint got put down real quick when Holtz finally got him to realize just _how_ far he’d gone this time. No, taking away meals did nothing, neither did the hitting, but a heartfelt conversation did help him realize that he shouldn’t try that again. It made her want to vomit. All of those hollow words – she wanted to strangle the hunter until he croaked.

And so, Connor grew up knowing that they would never have a stable place to live, and that was fine by him.

Shift, on the other hand, just grew to hate Holtz even more.

Yes, Connor needed an outlet. He had more energy than he knew what to do with.

But he didn’t deserve to starve.

He didn’t deserve the beatings.

He didn’t deserve the constant feeling that one wrong step and he would be dead.

The kid never knew one moment of relaxation. Anything and everything was trying to kill him. Holtz threw him headfirst in the deep end of the pool. Nothing had done him in yet, and she knew nothing would, but this was still torture with a fresh coat of paint. She was helpless to watch as Holtz offered up new opportunities for the boy to prove his love, only for Connor to realize the new fresh hell he was going to be subjected to. And he just went after it at full force with an excitement in his eyes that was never tamped out, not even when he was on a knife’s edge.

Holtz was teaching a golden retriever how to go for the throat with hitting and starvation. And Shift couldn’t do anything about it.


	4. Bloodlust

This had become a habit, Shift watching Holtz late at night, the tiny fire at his feet and a newly constructed hut behind him, sharpening his sword and just _knowing_ that she was watching him somewhere out there.

Yeah, she was. But he didn’t have to be so broody about it. She had just fed on him the day previous; she wasn’t even going to touch him for the next few. And yet, he still watched her like a hawk. Treated her like a monster more evil than any titan. With the vampire gone, she was the only intelligent object of his hatred he had left, and he focused relentlessly on her. She’d done nothing, _nothing_ , yet she was the worst thing he could imagine. But, hey, she hated him, so the feeling was mutual.

Most of this had to be misplaced rage toward Angel. If she had to guess, about eighty percent. He was still convinced she was one of his cronies. No, she wanted to tell him, she was not a member of the team Angel fanclub. She hated vamps. They stole her thunder. They were almost broody as Holtz himself. But was he ready to hear that conversation? No. He’s Holtz. He wasn’t ready to hear any conversation that didn’t put him up at the pillar of justice and truth. Though, she supposed that he wasn’t entirely wrong. She’d made it very clear where her loyalties lay, and it wasn’t with the hunter. It was with Connor. And if her and Angel’s motivations intersected at the same time, then Holtz probably wasn’t going to bother to care for the difference.

The nights that Holtz let Connor take watch were the nights she liked a lot more.

It had started as an exception to the rule. Almost a trial, of sorts. Holtz was putting a lot of faith in his son, trusting him to make sure nothing got to them in the middle of the night.

But he was putting a lot more faith in the tiger that knew about things she shouldn’t.

It didn’t sit right with her, for him to suddenly allow this opportunity ripe for the plucking. After seven years, maybe he’d gotten used to the idea that she wouldn’t interact with him. Maybe he finally got it through his head that she couldn’t raise a kid on her own. He had to know that she went after Connor when he sent him out on these little fetch quests of his. The boy himself never brought anything up on the subject – and never had, since Holtz had snapped at him with that chill in his eyes so long ago – and so Holtz had seemingly decided as evil and arch-nemesis worthy as she was, she also wasn’t worth caring about. Not in regard to his “son” at least. She was just an occasional fight that ended in scratches for him and lost limbs for her. She was target practice. A punching bag. A substitution for the real thing that he’d eventually get his rancid claws on.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

She didn’t let it bother her. Because she had something else to occupy her time now.

Like most times in the deserts and the swamps and the cliffs and the wastes, Connor would sit alone in the dark, and Shift would watch him. She watched him get older, she watched him change. She watched him from a perch that got closer and closer until she knew what she was doing was dangerous.

She couldn’t help it. He was Connor. Right there, in front of her. He looked different, still so young. He wasn’t the same person, not yet. But he would be, one day. It was strange to look into his eyes and see something so familiar and yet so uncannily different. That energy in his gaze hadn’t yet been tempered by experiences both good and bad.

His eyes were lit up by the fire as he sharpened his tools. He seemed relaxed, but she made no mistake about that. He was just waiting for the chance to kill something. That’s what the Destroyer did. Kill. Whatever he could touch, was something that wouldn’t survive long. He was so young, and he still had his own little pouch of his trophies. All of them had been worthy enough for him. All of them were memories. And all of them were hallmarks of how visceral and violent he could be.

At first these nights were quiet. Silent, but for the crackling of the fire that Connor kept going by himself. Holtz would sleep as much as the old man could in a hell dimension, and Connor would clean and test his equipment. And if a creature happened to be attracted to the light of the fire, he’d dispatch it the same way his father had taught him. Otherwise, it was a peaceful time. Shift didn’t have to feel like he was being stretched to his limits, and Holtz wasn’t there to whisper in his ear.

Then Connor started talking to the fire at night.

At first, Shift thought he was humming, perhaps even whispering incomprehensible nothings. They were barely more than mouthing sounds on his lips. But then he got louder. Just enough that someone with supernatural hearing would catch. And her throat tightened.

“I can smell you, you know.” He poked at the fire with his stick. The flames crackled higher. “I don’t know who you are. But I know you’re there. I can feel your eyes on me.”

He flicked his eyes up to the stand of trees she was hidden in. She swore she could feel his eyes directly on her. Icy blue, near psychopathic, and he was only a boy. “I know you exist,” he murmured. His mouth turned into a frown, and he went back to making arrows.

But his voice continued, quiet. Dangerous. “I know you’re following us. How many years now? I dunno. But you’re there. And I don’t like it.” He grit his teeth, and one of the arrows buckled under his strength. “If I wasn’t on watch, I’d kill you myself, and end it here.”

The girl grinned, despite herself. A toothy, boyish, smile. He sounded so sure of himself. Words like that were ones she had grown to love. That level of overwhelming confidence could only come from someone like Connor. She couldn’t help but feel a bit of pride as how he’d come to realize her intelligence, and that she could hear him. But that was the problem.

He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t be talking to her right now. This was wrong. Not what she’d been banking on.

“I don’t know why dad won’t talk about you,” he continued to mutter like an oath under his breath. “I don’t know what makes you so special! He won’t go after you, won’t even talk about you. Are you that dangerous? I bet I could kill you.” He held up an arrow at the stand of trees. “I could kill you. Definitely. And bring back your head or whatever on a plate. And show him.”

Her eyes hardened, and her hands gripped the branches of the tree a little harder. She… She was a challenge, now. If he had the chance, he’d try to track her down to the ends of the earth. And she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to avoid him. She was a predator, not prey. The moment that Connor got the chance, she knew he would go looking for her with all of that chaotic energy centered entirely around her. She hadn’t helped her case by feeding off of Holtz. All of that blood and fighting. He had to know by now that she was a threat.

Not just a threat. An opportunity to test his mettle against something his father wouldn’t kill.

Thankfully, Holtz had the kid focused entirely on the goals at hand. There was never any time for a little side project, never time for him to even _think_ of pursuing that thought. Maybe the man knew Connor’s intentions, and was keeping his mind as far away from her as possible purposefully. Or maybe he simply enjoyed the continued torture of the boy.

Whatever it was, she felt bittersweet about it. It meant more training, more hunting, more abuse under the guise of teaching him the way of the world, and quite the cunning, terrible plan by the man himself.

The first time he tied Connor to a tree and left the kid to find him in the terror that was the swamp, she knew that for better or for worse she had to go with Holtz. She had no idea how long it was going to be until the kid found him again and she couldn’t afford to let her food source go. And Holtz knew that.

That’s why he did it.

It hurt her heart to leave Connor strapped to a tree struggling to get out of the bindings. She watched the procession from safe distance away in the trees, and her stomach lurched as the man just… Just left him there. Like it was so easy to throw Connor away. Like this child he had reared from the very beginning was nothing to him. All that had been was an explanation, a farewell, and then silence as Holtz walked in the direction of another set of newly forged cliffs, courtesy of a nearby titan.

The kid looked like he was holding back tears. He’d stayed strong in front of Holtz when the man had explained why Connor had to do this. But he couldn’t hold it in for long. And Shift watched. She refused to tear her eyes away from the boy that was so frightened because he had no clue when he was going to see his father again. It wasn’t the fear of what could happen to him that got to him, in the end. It was the separation anxiety.

It took everything she had to turn her back on him and not break him out then and there.

With the boy gone, at least she could stay a hell of a lot closer to the source of sustenance she loved to hate. He wasn’t the one with the magic nose. She hated how much easier it made things. Without Connor, following the man was a chore, and a disgusting one at that. Somewhere out there, Connor was probably sobbing, and this was all she could do. She didn’t often hate her demonic properties, she was rather proud of what she was. But this made it damn near close.

“Ah,” Holtz said that first night she gave in to the hunger. The moon was high in the sky, and the unfamiliar constellations dotted the sky. She was startled by his voice. Her pupils were shot wide with the lack of light, her hair covered in moss and bristles and more fur-like than ever before with the way it stuck to her skin; and she kept her body low to the ground. Little more than an animal, the demon entered the small clearing with her claw-like nails digging into the dirt. Sometimes even in human form she walked on all fours these days. Instinct ruled over thought. Every flutter, every noise, every movement had her reacting to it. Her mind hadn’t fully gone from the time spent in Quor’toth, but she was slowly drifting further and further away as the years ticked by. Holtz hadn’t helped things, refusing to talk to her. And yet... “I was expecting my son. Aren’t you meant to be protecting him?”

“Stop talking to me.” Her voice broke. She hadn’t spoken in so long. Everything was deep and scratchy and wrong. It was a growl instead of a voice. She slowly stood up to her full height and stretched to give herself time to put her brain back into working order. Shrugging off the animal was easier said than done. “It’s weird.”

“It is rude of me not to talk to one of the only other intelligent creatures in this damned dimension. Come, take a seat by the fire.” He gestured with a hand.

She narrowed his eyes.

“Thinking you’ll catch more flies with honey?” She watched him carefully. “I just need your blood. If you let me have that, then I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Steven isn’t here,” he said smoothly. “We can talk as much as we like. It’s been nearly a decade, and I don’t know your name. Mine is Holtz, but I suppose you already know that. You seem to know a lot of things, for a demon that claims to have no allegiance.”

“I’m not talking to you.” She stalked around the fire to watch him. He was on guard as always, she noticed. But he wasn’t attacking. There was no knife in his hand. Just an open flask of water and a wide leaf piled with meat. He traveled light. Though, she knew from experience that there was still a hidden knife in his boot, and a carefully crafted bolt system on his arm under that hide sleeve. The poison glands he had harvested a while back that exploded on impact hung around his waist in a chain. Those at least slowed her down. But they took a while to use, and he had none at the ready.

She didn’t like this.

“Very well. I can talk, if you prefer. I’ve done a bit of thinking. I was wondering what opinion you might have on it.” He sipped at his flask, keeping his eye on her as she circled. Her hair shivered and moved with the wind, and her wariness. “That day that you entered the portal. I saw you, just before. In that car. You stopped while I held Steven in my arms. And then you went out, and fell right in after us. You knew that we would be there. You had been waiting.”

She didn’t respond. He was supposed to forget about her, accept her as habit, not question it! Holtz with information was a dangerous man. If there was one thing that could turn Connor away from her or anything she might say, it was manipulation. Holtz pushed the right buttons, and it was curtains for her.

She supposed she had been stupid to think that he wouldn’t consider how exactly a demon he’d never heard of before had tracked them down and fallen in after them.

“But what happened that day was between Angelus, Wolfram and Hart, the time demon, and myself. None of that debacle had planned to go down that way. It was a farce of a mission. The only way you would have known, is if one of them had already told you, just as it was happening. As though you would have been their calvary.” His eyes turned briefly to the fire. It wasn’t enough time for her to jump him. She’d need to bide her time. “You have justice, an uncommon trait in demons. You would be a worthy ally on anyone’s side, if it weren’t for your lack of tact. I thought, for quite a while, that meant only Angelus would be stupid enough to take you on. But then, you claim to care about the boy in ways I would never understand. Ways perhaps not even Angelus would understand. The words you said, they were telling.”

“Can you please, for the love of all that is holy in your eyes, shut the fuck up so I can drink?” She groaned out a deep, tired growl as she straightened across from him and rubbed her eyes. “I’m dying here. Seriously.”

He gave her a look.

“Alright, no, not seriously. But come on, man. I don’t need this analysis. You know what’s going to happen in the end. I’m prepared for you to try to hack my arms off if you just give me like a cup of blood here. And then I’ll be gone for another week. I like this little back and forth we got going here where you don’t bother to deign me with a conversation and I pretend to be a particularly aggressive mosquito, we don’t need to end it.”

“As I was saying,” he continued. “You know more about Steven-“

“Connor-“

“Than you should. You knew about my plans before I had those plans cemented in my mind. You seemed to _know_ that I would jump into this dimension, rather than fight to get away.” He took a bite of meat, and regarded the demon with a faint, cold smile. “Not even Angelus knew what would happen in that moment.”

“It’s not hard to guess what you’d do based on what’s currently happened.”

His eyes narrowed. Shit.

“How far in the future are you from?”

“Me? Right now? Depending on what physicist you ask, maybe like point two seconds? Dunno, I never went to college.”

“How many years?”

“Like, a billion.” She inched closer. He wasn’t outwardly bristling. Maybe he’d play nice. She could dream.

“You’re a wild card that I hate, you know.” The man took another sip of his canteen. “I curse the day you followed us. If it weren’t for you…” He gripped the canteen tighter.

“I haven’t done anything.”

“The boy knows you’re here. That is enough.”

“Well, I can’t avoid smelling like me.”

“You could have left. That would have saved me the trouble. But you need blood to live.” He sighed a light, meaningless sigh as he continued to watch her with those chilling eyes. Demons must have told horror stories about that gaze. She would have believed them. “And that means this constant battle. It’s interesting, your makeup. It has been quite a while since I have had to learn about a hunt from the ground up. There truly is nothing like you. If it weren’t for this vile landscape and the things it does to your, you could almost be human. Camouflage for your hunting, I suspect. And then there is your healing, with fire. No matter what I do to you, you come back just as strong as before. All it takes is blood, and you continue to thrive. You have enough strength to take down those creatures you think I don’t notice. In the dark. Helping us – or should I say the boy.” He went thoughtfully quiet. “… But there are weaknesses with every creature.”

“Shut up, Holtz,” she groaned. “Just take your medicine. Come on. It’s like a tiny needle in your neck. It’s not a big deal. There’s no point in trying to kill me. Why can’t we just learn to agree to disagree?” She inched closer. Her hands twitched, waiting for him to jump. She felt it was coming. She knew there was no way this would be easy. It was never easy.

“Your weaknesses are difficult to find. But they are there.”

“I don’t have any fuckin’-“

The water splashed her square in the chest, and it _hurt_. As the liquid sizzled like the world’s worst acid on her skin, she knelt as a reflex to try to protect herself, hissing in agony, and that was the last thing she saw.

Holtz stood over the headless corpse with the battle axe in hand that he’d kept hidden under his cloak. He’d done it. He’d actually done it. The shebeast was dead. Her head rolled into the small crackling fire, but the rest of her was motionless on the barren ground and bleeding out.

All of that careful watching, all of that quiet time biding, and the attention to detail he’d paid in those brief scuffles, all of it had led him to a far greater understanding of the creature’s strengths and weaknesses. An aversion to water was so obvious, it was a wonder he hadn’t realized before. And a demon, surviving decapitation? Especially a humanoid one? He leaned down above the corpse and pressed two fingers under her chin just to be sure. No, there was no twitching of the body, no pulse. She was finished. Dead, as all monsters would be after enough time spent with him.

Now all he had to do now was get rid of the body and make sure his Steven would never find it. All of his problems were solved. A relief washed over him that he hadn’t felt in a while. Finally, he could go back to raising Steven in peace.

And then the fire started.

The clearing went up in a blaze. Holtz barely had time to duck for cover behind one of the nearby boulders. But everything, trees, shrubs, the ground itself, absolutely everything, was felled in the fiery inferno. Sand turned to glass. Dirt scorched and disintegrated in a maelstrom of flame. Miles and miles away Connor looked up into the sky to see a plume of smoke filling up the air. His eyes widened.

It was over in seconds, but the evidence of it remained. His supplies, nonexistent. The trees that crowded around the clearing, gone, at least twenty feet deep. Holtz gripped the battle axe tight in calloused hands as he silently peered out from his own charred cover. That had to be the death throes, he decided. She was dead. The power keeping her going must have had to leave her more violently than expected.

Except, she wasn’t dead.

She was on her hands and knees, with wickedly sharp horns poking out from thick, ragged hair, a thin forked tail three times the length of her body whipping back and forth angrily, and two, dark bat wings that unfurled into a span that blocked out the moon. Pupiless red eyes stared ahead, multiple rows of massive shark teeth revealed in an uncannily wide grin. She opened her mouth, and a long tongue slipped between cruel, jagged teeth. Claws, more than fingers, dug into the ash. She was breathtaking. She was terrifying. And she was, much to Holtz’s chagrin, very not dead.

She bolted for him. She knew he was there. There was blood in the water, and she hungered.

He tried his best in the fight against her with nothing but the axe, the knife in his boot, and poison he thought could at least slow her down, but this was an entire league of fighting. A swing was met with a fist, a splintering of wood, and a bend of metal into an unusable shape. The man didn’t stand a chance. The sheer speed, the brutality, the need and the screeching that echoed throughout the swamp was simply too much. She wasn’t human. She would never be mistaken for human. She could tear the boulder apart with her bare hands if she wanted, let alone his flimsy skin. No amount of skill would make up for how quickly she countered every move, every attempt. He was molasses compared to movements that almost seemed to calculate what he was a _bout_ to do. No dirty tricks would work when he couldn’t even began them in the first place. She truly was the strongest thing he had ever come across.

She only took a cup of blood.

When it was done, he lay there in the center of the clearing that had burned to cinders and watched her quickly disappearing form with panting breaths. She had truly got him this time. The deep gouges in his chest would leave scars. The burns were deep in his flesh, and would ache for weeks afterward. But she hadn’t killed him. When she had finished, she had forced herself away from him like they were opposing magnets. And then her eyes had cleared, and she’d sprinted into the woods before she could finish the job.

Holtz stared up at the sky, his chest heaving and his body metaphorically and literally on fire, and began to formulate a different plan.


	5. Exaltation

This was a bit of a miscalculation. 

Shift didn’t like this form. She didn’t like it one bit. It was far stronger here than it had ever been in her own hell, which, granted, she always enjoyed power. But was also nearly impossible control. Her true form had always been unruly, its very nature brought with it blood lust and indiscretion. Last ditch efforts at survival were like that.

But then Quor’toth’s call of the void ramped that up to eleven, and her instincts were thrown all over into the wind. She raced through the trees in an effort to lose the pure power and adrenaline running through her veins, but it she couldn’t outrun her instincts. She couldn’t outrun the voice getting louder and louder in head, no matter how hard she clutched at her hair and screeched. She must have awoken half the forest with her noise. 

The voice wanted her to just get it over with. Kill the man. Cover the clearing with his innards. Don’t just drink, eat. You want to eat. You’ve been denying yourself far too long. You could finally sink your teeth into more than just a fruit smoothie. You could have steak. That’s what your body needs, that’s what it craves. You’re not a vampire. Stop deluding yourself. Stop starving yourself.

She scratched up trees with deep, gouging claw marks as she went. Nothing could take the edge off. Nothing could stop the madness. Nothing but the horde of boar monsters, that had thought they could take down something that made a noise like that. The first of the pack arrived up on a gorge looking down at her, and she actually grinned for once at the prospect of being skewered by their stupid fucking horns. This was something she could be thankful for. She needed it this time. 

This wasn’t a blood high, but it fucking felt like it. Logic and years to learn willpower were the thin lines keeping her thiiis close from making a Holtzburger. She didn’t think he even realized that it wasn’t the blood she truly wanted. Ah yes, with shark teeth, she would totally drain him dry. That makes sense. Like she is totally equipped to suck blood through a straw. No, fuckass. It’s your flesh she wants. She was being gentle all these years. Starving herself. It was his flesh. She needed flesh. 

She hoped that whole thing taught him a lesson not to play with fire. 

Okay really, she needed to stop drooling is what she needed. 

Many days and a few more, less extreme fights later, Connor had found his way back to Holtz, and her extra appendages had long since dissipated into ash. Wings, horns, and a tail cost too much energy to keep up, and they were bulky anyways. She was content they were gone. If there was one thing she didn’t want Holtz finding out, it was just how sensitive those horns were. Hoo boy, that was a road she didn’t want to go down. 

The kid asked a lot of questions, all of which Holtz deflected with careful practice. That fire? Another monster, one plausible enough for Connor to accept. Also, it made up for those claw marks, and his suspicious lack of supplies. He’d been taken by surprise, after all. And the gouges left in the forest, the dead creatures they hadn’t taken down? Well, Holtz was sure there were more beasts out there they had yet to hunt that could cause something of that caliber. He wouldn’t put it past Quor’toth that there was something large and very angry that had been attacked by those bear boars. No one liked the bear boar anyway. They’d have to be on high alert to make absolutely sure they didn’t get that nebulous monster angry, unless they were absolutely sure they could make it good and dead.

Connor accepted these excuses begrudgingly, and in turn explained what he had discovered on his own journey, with all the excitement of a child that had just come back from summer camp. His hands moved emphatically as he described slugs with the ability to seize a body in order to take control of it, creatures with tentacles that were nearly bio-luminescent in the light, or as he described it, very shiny and see-through. They headed towards water and often took their hosts to unclaimed pools, drowning them to get enough water to sate themselves. They’d shot themselves right at him, he claimed, and he’d slashed them right in half with his reflexes. Then, when he had them on the ropes, he followed them back to their hive. Poison, acid, and explosions had seen to rest of that. He boasted with pride, his chest puffed out as he recounted the sheer number he’d taken out. The kid was a little destroyer, that was for certain. Then, of course, he had to see if they were edible. Turns out, not very.

And thus, the kid had survived his first attempt tracking down Holtz, though Shift had made it rather easy. The next time, he managed to do it all on his own. And the time after that. And the time after that. 

Shift couldn’t say she was pleased with how often Holtz kept sending him out. She was here to protect Connor, not deal with the man’s jabs and fighting. He wasn’t exactly the best company, the hunter. Sure, that meant Connor didn’t have time to think about her, but then the kid was out there without anything except maybe, if Holtz was feeling soft, a knife to defend himself. There were giants out there, acid and fire breathing monsters, mists that turned you to mush, and the kid was just out there, by himself, lost. Getting progressively more brainwashed with every passing day. 

At least Holtz wasn’t fighting her as hard anymore. Those skirmishes didn’t end with the same wounds, and for it he was often left relatively untouched. 

She was smug. She had him spooked. 

Time moved on. Connor got older, they changed their course for a less heat exhaustive wasteland, and they finally came in contact with more intelligent locals. Barely. Kobold type things, furred creatures with long ears and a screech that grated on every fucking nerve Shift had left. They could even talk, with a strange clipped dialect that was almost English. Not very strong, but they were brutal, and smart enough to make tools with barbs that tore and rended flesh. Smart enough to be coordinated too, they had Holtz and Connor up against a ledge at one point with nowhere else to turn. On either direction were the deadlands, but they were pushed right up against the base of a titan-made cliff. There must have been scores of them, some hissing from their perch up on the top where the dead shrubs gave way to sandy soil that threatened to collapse. It was a scene ripped right out of Lord of the Flies. 

But that was all they got out of those two. Connor got himself his first intelligent kill, and Holtz relished that he was able to quote holy verse at adversaries that understood what it meant. Talking creatures were just annoying, but that was all. The only reason these things had lasted this long was that their intelligence allowed them to be just a little smarter than the animals dominating the wastes. 

Shift had her first dealings with the locals too. They found her in the nearby hills that had more ground cover, and therefore more privacy from a young boy’s prying eyes. Quickly, they descended on the annoyed fire demon with screeches designed to alert and to disorient. 

She cracked her knuckles as she was surrounded from all sides with spears and axes and loin cloths and particularly evil grins. From their blather, she could glean they were pretty interested in the fact that she was a female demon totally able to be made into a sex slave for whatever nefarious demon god they prayed to. Then there was a lot more garbled mess she was thankful she didn’t understand. She rolled her eyes. After a few moments of entertaining their stupidity, she showed them who was the stronger creature. The blood curdling screech she let out was loud enough to get the attention of a titan. The group kind of stared at each other, looked at the weapons in their hands, thought about it for a second, and then proceeded to be idiots anyways. Ah well, she decided. It was their funeral.

Connor and Holtz left that village with the population devasted. Shift left that village as nothing more than a smear of ash left on the map. 

There would be more, she was sure. She’d get those too. Not a lot of things gave her a headache, but they were a special breed of annoying.

It was surprising that Connor wasn’t all that saddened by something that could talk. He’d taken out creature after screaming creature without batting an eye. He’d even relished their bloodcurdling cries with all the vigor of a psychopathic, hyperactive child. Several of their ears decorated his chest, and a few of their sharp claws had found their way into his weaponry repertoire. No, Connor was more saddened by the poor moth creature he’d tried to ride than he was by anything that talked or walked like a human. 

Yeah, Shift was there for that one, too. She was there for almost all of his milestones, when he thought no one was watching. 

Holtz had let him go off to get firewood, knowing full well that not having an eye on him meant that he would do something stupid, and the kid did not fucking disappoint. From the moment he’d been able to think of hairbrained schemes, this one had been at the top of his list. 

Connor climbed one of the highest cliffs with the same ridiculous notion in mind and no Holtz there to tell him to fucking not, looked down at the ridiculous vast expanse below, and jumped. Again. How many times had it been since he’d started doing this shit? Who knew. Shift couldn’t keep track, he’d certainly done it enough on his own when she couldn’t follow, because he’s gotten far too bold for his own wellbeing, and too well versed. The wind flew through his hair, and that adrenaline pumped through his veins and told him that this was totally a good decision. The thing was right there beneath him. Right on target, right on target… He’d been practicing, just for this moment. He’d calculated this time – these calculations being repetitive throwing off of various cliffs and seeing what worked and what didn’t. He couldn’t fail. 

This time, he’d hit it dead on. Got the six-winged creature right in the back. Right, he thought in the split second he’d touched the thing, now he could finally ride. But instead of grabbing the thing’s whiskers and sailing the air like he’d always dreamed of doing, there was a rough, sharp crack, and the thing went down like a stone. Shift leapt from tree to tree to catch a glimpse of them before they disappeared. 

They fell a couple hundred feet before they hit the tree line. 

She came upon Connor and his steed on the edge of a crack that broke through the earth, and went a hell of a lot deeper than where they’d landed. That drop could have very well killed him. And the creature was inches away, its wings hanging over the edge, the pebbles beside it slowly rolling off and dropping into the ether. 

And yet, Connor was somehow perfectly fine. Like a cat, he’d landed on his feet, nothing but wind-struck hair to show for it. He was just kneeling there, poking at the thing with innocent furrowed eyebrows, as gentle of someone of his strength could. Why wasn’t it flying? What went wrong? Where was the special friend ride he was supposed to be having right now? Was it okay? He didn’t understand. He thought that he had done everything right. What was wrong with it?

It was very not okay. That hit, that single hit, had broken the moth creature’s back instantly. It had died on impact with the ground, and now it was just a lifeless jumble of limbs, fangs, bulbous eyes, and leathery wings. His own strength had broken his toy. 

And he didn’t understand that. He couldn’t. He had so many plans. They could have gone on cool adventures together. He could have flown in the sky. He could have brought it back to Holtz and asked to keep it as a pet. He looked at the creature he’d killed, then at himself, and then the tears began to form. 

He had killed before. Many, many times. That’s all the boy ever knew, was how to kill. And he was good at it, he’d been praised for it time and time again. But this was different. This time, he didn’t want it to die. He just wanted to play. He just wanted to have fun. For once in his life, he wanted to do something that didn’t involve blood and death. And he’d broken it. Killed it. Because the kid didn’t know his own strength. 

Shift watched him silently from behind a rock, her nails digging into the gritty, harsh stone. It was a lesson he needed to learn, but it was still a hard one to take. She just had to hover there, watching him, unable to really do anything, while he cried his heart out.

Alone.

It was maddening. She’d never felt so helpless. He was just a kid. Just a fucking kid. 

Connor pushed that moth down into the ravine. He didn’t have the heart to butcher and eat it. Dad would have hated him for it, but dad wasn’t here right now. And he would never know anything about it. Not even that he’d cried. Because Connor got some of that acid moss off the side of a swamp laden tree, covered his face in it without a word of pain, and came back to camp proudly claiming that he’d come across some acidic slime. On that had put up a pretty good fight, too, that’s why his face had been through the wringer. He even pointed to the wounds as he spoke, though not nearly with the same vigor as his other successful hunts. Dad just chastised him for forgetting the firewood. 

That was better than the tears. He didn’t even know what dad would do if he knew he’d been crying over some moth. Crying was not part of the training regiment. Crying was not to be associated with his boy. Because his Steven was to be a killing machine, and a beloved, loyal, obedient, strong son. Nothing more. That’s what he had to be. 

Recognizing the fragility of life did come with its advantages, though. Holtz wasn’t sure why, but the man didn’t get quite so many punches to the groin in their sparring after that. 

At least Shift got to see him happy when he eventually got the hang of it. Seeing him actually get a moth alive, learning to ride it, and flying out over the cliffs with a whooping that could be hear miles away, made her something she couldn’t describe. He held onto those antenna and flew it so high up that he nearly made it head to head with the biggest titan, the one named after the very dimension. That creature called Quor’toth was a mountain against the horizon, destroying whatever it could in its path with a simpleminded destructive intelligence as evil as the dimension’s call toward the void. Connor watched it from the back of his moth, and felt a glorious kind of strength from being just as tall as a thing that couldn’t be killed.

And then Holtz killed and ate his pet moth for dinner. And Connor learned that everything in this world will eventually be food. The question was just how long and how hungry you were. No matter how much he tried to convince the man, a useful animal didn’t matter in the end. Flight wasn’t as important as survival. And no, he could not have a pet. 

Connor was too tired to argue.


	6. Meet Cute

Then came the day that Shift was dreading. 

“I think I should go hunting by myself,” Connor decided, out of the silence they had been working in. He was working meticulously on sharpening his arsenal of swords while his father was skinning a large boar beast. Now that the kid was in his mid-teens, he had quite the arsenal at his fingertips. Everything he owned he could dismantle and clean in less than half an hour, then put back on his back and carry for forty-eight hours without sleep. It was something he put pride in. Dad said it was sinful to be prideful, but it had never quite been beaten out of the boy’s head to be proud of the accomplishments not even Dad could do.

“Do you now?”

“Yeah. I want to see what’s over the wasteland. I think I could do it.” Connor looked up to his father from across the roaring firepit with a grin. The boy had spent his last few years climbing over mountain after mountain and hurdle after hurdle to show him just how strong he could be. Some things he did just for the hell of it, as a challenge to himself. Any creature they’d come across, he’d dismembered and left for the bugs. Any cliff, he’d scaled on his own. He was just as they said in the small towns that survived him. The Destroyer. He dressed himself in skins and bones and ears, each trophy a marker of another beast that believed they could best one of the strongest things in the hell dimension. Only Quor’toth was stronger than him, he’d like to boast when Holtz wasn’t looking, and that would change if he had anything to say about it.

But there was one goal that had never strayed from his mind.

Screw the other challenges, there was a scent he had to find. Something he had to hunt. Something he had to kill, bring back to his father, and show him that he was worthy to know what it was that his father never dared to speak of, perhaps out of fear. His father was only human, after all.

He would get that elusive monster that had been tracking him for the past fifteen years and bring it back to the man with its head on a plate. That was the greatest challenge. The one that had been denied to him for far too long. Perhaps Holtz had turned a blind eye and ear to the stories the intelligent locals told of that elusive striped monster, the one that stalked the nights and took out entire towns with a single burst of energy, but Connor listened. A monster with razor sharp teeth, covered in shaggy fur mixed with orange and black, a long tail, and claws that could rend flesh from bone with a single swipe. A creature who breathed fire. He knew that what he scented was very real, and very dangerous.

Though it made him wonder why it hadn’t attacked him and his father outright. Surely something of that power would have thought Connor to be a sitting target. Everyone did in the beginning – they learned the truth very quickly.

Holtz was an aging man. His hair had streaks of grey, and his face grew more wrinkled with every day. He was still strong and sharp as a whip – Shift would know if that changed – but the elder hunter was realizing their time was growing close. He could not stay in Quor’toth if his plans were to come to fruition. His boy had become a man before his very eyes. He had his ups and downs and hairbrained schemes – he could never train that out of his son – but his Steven was far more reserved these days than the child he had been.

There was only so much Holtz could train him in before _he_ became the one holding him back. Those times his son had spent hunting him down over weeks and months had left him able to make it out on his own, but this time, Steven needed time to himself without a specific goal in mine.

And the man knew that he would come back to him. The boy was a tracker like nothing else. Holtz could be out miles, and the tiniest change on the wind would give his Steven enough of a head start to gain on him.

“Alright,” Holtz relented. “But that doesn’t mean you can shirk your training. I expect you to continue your lessons when I am not there to guide you.” He paused, then gave him the evil eye, the chilling, cold one that Connor knew to give the utmost respect. “And don’t even think of taking down Quor’toth. That titan is not to be trifled with.”

“I promise.” Connor could say that honestly. He had bigger fish to fry. His father was going to be so proud.

“And you make sure to stay out of the heart of the desert.”

“I know, dad.”

“Don’t jump off the cliffs.”

“I got it, dad.”

“How long will you be gone?”

Connor narrowed his eyes at the campfire as he tried to parse out the time it would take to hunt the creature down. It was near, he knew, as it always was, but actively hunting it could prove difficult. “I don’t know. Give me a month.”

“Fine.”

If Holtz even had an inkling of what his boy was really planning, he would have put a leash on him and made him heel right then.

Shift didn’t even figure it out at first herself. She was prepared to stay with Holtz, which meant more mind games and attempts to get her to reveal more information, goody, but she didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter. 

It was upsetting. She knew Connor going off on his own was going to happen eventually. But if they were going to be separated, then once again, she couldn’t be there for him. Just watching him had become somewhat of a comfort for her. Everything else was just water and slime and bugs and Holtz and the occasional explosions from fucking ugly-ass giants that roamed the earth. And Connor, was, well, Connor. She hated saying goodbye every time Holtz forced it. This was no different.

So, imagine her predicament when the next day, the second that Holtz and Connor had both travelled far enough away from each other, Connor scented the air, then turned his attention straight towards her.

And then he ran.

Shift had been reluctantly meandering off with Holtz when she caught the scent. There was no noise, no sight of him. But there was something on the wind. The faint but noticeable musk she knew like the back of her hand.

He was supposed to be going in the other direction.

He must have been following Holtz’s path, she thought at first. That was strange, the wastes were the other way. But then the scent got stronger. She was a quarter of a mile out from Holtz. She’d keeping her distance this whole time, thinking there had been enough space to keep the kid from scenting her. There was no reason for him to…

Shit. Apparently, she’d miscalculated. Again.

She could hear movement. The faint crackling of tree branches just a little too close. The sound of fabric against fabric. Of breath, quiet, and artificially slowed. The sound of a man on a hunt.

The Destroyer was coming for her. 

She booked it.

Zooming through the swamp, flitting through the trees on her way to the greater forest, she ran as fast as two legs, then four legs would carry her. But not even a tiger malformed from Quor’toth would outrun that kid, she knew. Nothing could outrun Connor on a mission.

This was bad, very, very bad. He could go for weeks with nothing but a piece of jerky and a few sips of water, she wouldn’t even make it two without collapsing from hunger. Fight him? Yeah, she knew every trick he’d ever learned, even got a refresher watching him for the past decade and a half. But stay away, out of sight, and lose that bloodhound nose? Fuck no. She was doomed.

Running past hordes of those wild bear boars didn’t stop him. He felled everything that came near him without breaking a sweat, and continued on relentlessly. She brought him straight into a den of the worst sons of bitches she’d ever seen, two legged humanoids covered in iron like plating with jaws that unhinged, and his fist collided with the first creature’s mouth and left the thing only half a head.

He didn’t even stop running.

The hunt continued. For days, it continued, without end. Without the chance for either of them to breathe.

She crossed rivers, but that was nothing for him. She took to the trees, but that was just insulting his skill. She wouldn’t even consider hiding. That would only leave her with no where else to turn to when he eventually cornered her. And he would corner her. It was only a matter of when.

The entire time she was running, the word Fuck was repeatedly echoing in her head. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He was still just a kid, didn’t matter how old he was, just a fucking kid, and this was so weird, and she couldn’t see him, this was just going to be the most confusing bullshit in the world –

The only thing she could do was hope that he would eventually need sleep. That was the one thing she had on him. She didn’t need it, but she could see him slowing down when she occasionally climbed a tree to get her bearings and see the alarmingly small gap between them. He must have been exhausted. Come on, kid, she thought. Just sleep. Sleep.

Too many days without sleep did things to his brain, and Connor knew that. He started making stupid decisions, mistakes that Holtz would scold him for. His fighting got sloppy. His eyes swam and became unfocused. He would be running and suddenly his legs would catch on a rock and he’d trip right into a hive full of killer insects. That elusive monster had to be close. But he couldn’t keep going on like this. It had been nearly a full week, and all he had was its scent.

There was a small part of him afraid that this was all in his head.

But the overarching obnoxious yelling in his head told him that he wasn’t a quitter. This was the ultimate goal. He wasn’t going to end it here. He was the Destroyer! To come back to Dad with nothing to show for it was unthinkable. This thing had been a bane of their existence from the very beginning. If Dad was so afraid that he never even talked about it, then Connor would show him he could kill it. He’d make him feel just a little safer at night. Just like he wished he could do for the vampire that plagued the man’s nightmares.

Shift was the one that made the fatal error of thinking he would try to sleep. He had to, she decided, days after she’d last caught a glimpse of him from the trees. She didn’t smell him getting any closer. And she needed to conserve energy before planning her slow, and probably painful trip back to her food source. There was a growing gnawing worry that she wouldn’t be able to get to Holtz. She wouldn’t _die_ without blood, ha, dying. But she would be weak. She would be barely able to make it through the forest going after him, and that wasn’t counting the monsters she’d have to deal with along the way. That prick could be anywhere by now. It could be actual months before she found him. She wasn’t looking forward to that fight for just a bit of his blood.

So, she hid, and hoped to hell and back that Connor wake up to a stale scent and thus give up on this fool’s errand. She wasn’t worth it. She didn’t do anything. There was no point to her. No reason to hunt her. Fuck, she wasn’t ready to have this conversation with him. It had been a decade and a half and she STILL did not want to look him square in the eye.

She hid out in the hollow of a large tree and focused intently for any change in the air. Any sound would alert her. All of her senses were on as high alert as they could be. Just an hour for him to fall asleep, and then she’d make a wide berth as she headed back around. A good plan, she thought.

Too bad she wasn’t very good at being prey.

The throwing axe hit her in the shoulder. Her eyes popped, she grabbed it, and just managed to duck out of the way fast enough that she missed the much thicker blade aimed right for her throat.

Connor’s eyes filled with confusion as he finally got his first look at the beast that had been haunting him his entire life.

There it was. Right in front of him, in the flesh. Only, where were the stripes, the muscles, the… the monstrousness? It… He? looked like him. Like a human. Red eyes and spiked teeth aside, it clearly didn’t belong in Quor’toth. Its clothes were straight out of his father’s world. And there was that stupid scent again! A clearly defined, warm scent, that did something to his head when it was fresh and up close. Where did this creature come from? Who even was he? It? Did it know anything about his father? Did it work for Angel?

Shift stood across from him in the middle of the woods with her body held low and brutally ripped the axe out from her shoulder. The blood started to burn and sizzle around the wound, and she swore internally.

This was not going to be a fun fight. She’d have to find some way to disable him, and then get the hell out of here looking for Holtz. Hopefully before Connor caught up to her exhausted self.

Fuck, she didn’t want to do this. Connor was right there. Right in front of her, watching her with that expression she knew so well and yet not at all.

He circled, and so did she, the both of them taking in each other. That confusion was still there, but he was focused. He still had his eyes on serving Holtz up her head on a plate. There was no room for anything else, no room to question.

The kid was so young. Even with the striking figure of fur and leather and chitin, she couldn’t shake the memories she’d had of watching him grow up from a little potato.

Now all of this seemed so wrong.

“I found you,” he said.

“Fuck.”

His lunge ran on pure adrenaline. She was faster in the moment; it had only been a week without blood and she could last a little longer. But Connor was strong too, and far too riled up to hold back. He relied on that just as much as his speed. She could dodge as much as she wanted. When he came after her, he ripped up trees with the force of his swings. The landscape fell under his blows. But much to his surprise, the creature’s strength was more than enough to match him. She could catch him in a hit, and send him flying back just as much as he could her. His kicks cracked stone, but so did hers. Every time he thought he had her, she moved with the speed of wind out of his grasp, as elusive as she had ever been. All of his weapons ended up every which way, useless and broken or else buried in her skin. But those deep gouges healed in moments, leaving fire lighting up the whole of her side. The object of his hunt was made of fire. Near ethereal, and yet oh so very real.

It was mesmerizing to him.

He sent out a punch meant for her face, and she stopped it dead it its tracks with a strength he didn’t know someone else could possess. The two of them stared at each other in the brief moment of clarity, and in that moment both of them faltered. The creature had sharp angular features, thin cheek bones, dark red eyes, and wide hips. He wasn’t thinking straight. Something about it was just… Confusing him. That was the word. Confusing him.

But Shift, in turn, couldn’t think either. Her heart was beating out of her chest. He was right there, right in front of him – they were fighting, for god’s sake! Practically foreplay! But this wasn’t him, she kept trying to tell herself. He wasn’t the same. He was too young. He was just a kid. Even if he didn’t look it anymore, even if they were physically, uncomfortably, too close in age, even if he thought he was the big strong man that Holtz liked to fire him up to be in their weird rite-of-passage bullshit. This was just fucking wrong. She had to run. As soon as there was an opening.

She swiped his feet out from under him, and for once, she struck true without him getting the chance to block it.

But then he grabbed her by the hair, and pulled her down with him.

The two fell into a jumble of limbs and teeth and claws. When it came down to wrestling, he was well practiced, his grips strong, and his body moved like a single muscle to try to grip her in one place. And she was spending far too much time thinking about how stupid stupid stupid! this had become. She kept looking for a way out, and he kept finding another way to pin her down and that wasn’t helping ANYTHING for her. He was too close. Way too close. And she couldn’t just bite him. No matter how good he smelled, she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. Nor would she burn him. But that meant she was a declawed cat.

And that’s how they ended up in this position. Him, pinning her against the dirt, and her, helplessly staring back at him. He thought he got the upper hand, that smug idiot was trying not to grin thinking he had bested this creature in fair combat. She was struggling not to burst into flames. Better he think he’d done it. Then she’d have the chance to get away when his guard was down.

But he wasn’t attacking. The curiosity had gotten the better at him, and on the tip of his tongue were countless questions. He stared down at her with his hair in his eyes and his elbow against her throat and she tried very hard not to blush.

“Who are you?” He demanded, dark circles under his eyes framing a wild look.

She gulped. Well. Fuck. His voice had dropped a while back but this was the first time she was hearing it up close.

“Shift,” she choked. “Name’s Shift.”

“Shift,” he echoed. “Tell me right now why I shouldn’t kill you?”

“Well, first of all, it would be hard to do, just for sheer durability on my part – that is not a challenge don’t make that a challenge-“

“Stop talking,” he growled. “Tell me who you are, instead. Everything. How do you know my father? Why have you been tracking us ever since I was born? What – what are you?”

His demands were excited and sharp, filled with bright interest. If he had a tail, he’d be wagging it. Fuck. Okay. She bit her lip. This was different than what she was expecting. But Connor was curious. Very curious. Too curious, in fact, seeing as he was very obviously checking her out while keeping her pinned. Those naïve eyes raked down her body like it was perfectly normal to objectify an enemy.

She went a little pinker.

“That is a very long and stupidly complicated conversation,” she coughed. “And I can’t really talk with your arm in my esophagus.”

“But if I let you go, you’ll run.”

“I won’t,” she offered.

“How can I trust you?”

“Uh. You can’t. But you could also just hunt me down again.”

He bit his lip as he continued to look down at her. “That was a lot of work.”

“So was running away from you.”

He frowned deeply. This was his catch. He didn’t want to just lose it after all his hard work.

But curiosity always won out, in the end.

Slowly, he let her up, just enough. But his arms strained. The moment his prize tried to run, he would chase after it. Adrenaline still rode high through his blood, one of the only reasons he’d managed to stay awake this long. His eyes were fixated on the creature, watching it carefully. It moved gracefully, animalistically. A fluid, single motion, with taught skin warm to the touch. It arched up, crossed its legs, and watched him with a flushed face. They stared at each other a moment longer.

“What are you?” He pressed when she didn’t say anything. She blinked, startled.

“A demon.”

He immediately bristled, and she grimaced.

“You’re a monster!”

“Fifteen years, and you’re untouched. Do you really think I would hurt you right now when you’ve already got me right here where you want me?”

“Maybe - maybe you’re waiting for something.” He flicked his eyes over to the battle axe nearby.

“I’m not going to eat ya,” she sighed. “I promise. And I’m not running, see?” She gestured around herself, sat there, unmoving. “So my promises are worth something.”

He had to begrudgingly give that to her. Also, he couldn’t kill this newfound development. It was talking to him, more comprehensively than any other creature that he had yet to find in Quor’toth, and in a different, more interesting way than his father ever had. And it also smelled good.

“So, what are you?” He asked.

“Excuse me?”

“A creature? A man?” He motioned to himself. “You look like me, but not.”

Fucking hell. This was going to be painful. “I’m a girl. She. Her. Female. A different gender here. Ya know, with the whole girl bits.”

“A girl.”

“With tits.”

“What are tits?”

“Oh god.” She dropped her head. He crawled right up to her with wide eyes.

“What are tits? I want to know.”

“I can’t believe this is happening.”

“Hey!” He grabbed her by the hair and forced her to look at him, only to falter in wonderment at the thing’s face. The creature was even more flushed than before, the heat radiating from her cheeks. Staring at him, the pupils in her eyes actively changing from small to hugely wide until they were big black moons in a sea of red.

“I’m a female,” she finally whimpered. “Okay? Surely you know what the fuck a female is.”

“I know that,” he said with a growl, and let her go. “It’s – it’s…”

She paled in the realization that she was actually going to have to explain to Connor the difference between men and women. “Oh fuck no - I can’t believe I have to - Fuck me - No wait – fuck – that came out wrong – fuck this –“

“You curse a lot.”

“Well I can’t fucking help it seeing as this wasn’t even supposed to happen!”

He narrowed his eyes. “What is that supposed to mean?” He hopped to his feet, and started to circle his prize. The creature craned its head around to keep an eye on him. He supposed he could see it being the elusive monster that had been following him all these years. It was smaller than him, thin, lean, and could easily fit into the darkness. The clothes it wore were strangely well made and dark grey, good for staying hidden. But they offered no protection. The shirt was torn in half, leaving her stomach and lower back exposed.

She groaned. “It’s really, really complicated. I’m not sure if you’ll even believe me. That’s the problem here. It’s, like, a stupid amount of information that’s so convoluted that it will all sound like total bullshit to you. I’m not even sure how much Holtz has got you brainwashed at this point and frankly I’m afraid to ask.”

“So you admit you know my father.”

“He’s not your dad, Connor. He’s an asshole.”

“He _is_ my real father,” Connor snarled. “And my name is Steven.” He looked down at her with a cold, defiant expression, in an attempt to emulate his father and hero. “You sound like Angel.”

“You’ve never even met Angel.” She rolled her eyes. The creature talked a lot with her hands. “He’s like, a thousand times more broody, tells terrible jokes that no one gets, constant face wrinkles from squinting, head like a cement brick, I’m telling ya.” She paused as his expression darkened. “Okay, I know that sounds bad, but I don’t KNOW him, I just know OF him. Some people have given me good descriptions, you know?” She grimaced. He just stared at her. Like he was about to kill her then and there.

She sighed. “I’m not one of Angel’s little groupies.”

“Then where are you from? And why are you talking like that?”

“Like what?”

His jaw tightened. “I don’t know.”

“Like I have a clue about the other world we came from? That’s because I do.”

“You… You look like you’re almost as old as me.”

Oh hell. Well, here we go.

“I don’t age.”

“Because you’re a vampire!” He strode forward.

“Back it up kid. I hate vamps. I’m not a vamp.” Not that she was any better than one. More like, considerably worse.

His nose wrinkled in thought as his eyes continued to catalogue her every move. “Then what kind of demon are you?”

“A fire demon. Just your regular, run of the mill, immortal fire demon. That’s it, that’s me. We don’t have to talk about me anymore and ya know I should probably get going I got places to be and I’m _sure_ you do too, you seem like a very busy man-” She started backing up and he pounced on her again. The kid was fast. In one smooth motion he had his arms pinning her against the ground, his eyes glaring into hers.

“No, you’re not going.” He paused. “What is that?”

“What is what?” She managed to squeak out.

“What’s happening with your face?”

“There’s nothing happening to my face.”

“It’s going red again – what kind of power is that? Are you going to breathe fire? Is that what fire demons do?” More tail wagging.

She had to gawk at the sheer naivety. “You are adorable and I need to fucking shoot myself.”

“… What?”

“Sorry.” She averted her eyes and resisted fighting the grapple he had on her. It would only make this worse. “It’s just hard to focus right now. Your scent is distracting me.”

“ _My_ scent? You’re the one with the smell that clogs up my nose and makes it hard to think! That’s the one that’s been chasing us around this whole time, the one not even dad will talk about! I hate it! Why is he ignoring you!?”

“Because he doesn’t like me. And see, I’ve been following you this whole time because I’ve been protecting ya, kid. You get it? I’m not the bad guy.”

“But… I don’t need protecting. Why doesn’t he like you?” Training was telling Connor he should kill this female, and be done with it. He was wasting time and energy chewing the fat when at the back of his mind his body ached for relief. For sleep. For this to be done with. But he resisted that urge. This was secret information that his father never told him. This might be the only chance he’d ever get to hear it. When this was all over, then he would kill it. For his father.

“Because he’s a liar.”

“My dad is not a liar!”

“Okay, if not an outright liar, a manipulator. He wants to turn you into a killing machine to take down Angel for his own personal gain. That vamp has a soul and flipped a big ol’ one eighty. He’s such a fuckin’ kitten, it’s not even funny. Barely got claws anymore, starving himself with animal blood.”

She swallowed before continuing, “But all of that bullshit that’s about to take place, it’s only to end with you getting hurt, BECAUSE of Holtz. He’s even gonna kill himself, just to make you think Angel did it. So, here I am trying to keep that from happening. Consider me your very own bonified guardian angel.”

“But – but how do you even know that?” He pressed closer. His hands gripped her arms tight. They were inches apart. She held in a whine, tilting her head to the side out of reflex.

“That’s the complicated part. I’m not from here. I’m not even from Angels’. I hopped _two fucking dimensions_ just to get to you. Not that it was my choice, but I did have to steal a car.”

His eyes filled with confused wonder, but quickly chilled into suspicion. “I don’t believe you.”

“I could be spinning all sorts of tales right now, and I can’t prove or disprove any of ‘em,” she groaned. “So what’s the point of not believing them? All we can do is talk.”

“We could fight,” he growled.

“We could. But I don’t want to hurt you.” She risked a grin. He glowered.

“I would beat you!”

“I don’t think any fight we’ve ever had has ended with a winner.”

He furrowed his brows. “We’ve never fought before.”

“Shit.”

His scowl deepened. “You don’t make any sense. I don’t understand you. I don’t like this – it’s like you’re messing with my head.” He drew back to rub his scalp, and she finally got the chance to breathe. His scent was all over her, impossible to ignore. She inched away until her back was against a tree, but she didn’t run. He was pacing now, back and forth. Her eyes followed him carefully. He didn’t look like he was watching her, but she knew better.

“All of these things you’re saying – you know my dad – and you know Angel, but you don’t know him, and then you know about me, and we’ve never even met. And you’re from another _dimension_?” He was trying to piece it altogether in his head and nothing was sticking.

The kid wasn’t getting any of this, but he wasn’t trying to kill her, so that was a start, she supposed. “And time, I guess we’ll just throw that out there. A possible future.”

“My future.”

“Yeah.”

“So, you know me in the future.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

Something lit up in that hard skull of his, and she just realized she’d made a terrible mistake.

“What happens?” He leaned back in.

“Uh.”

“I want to know. Maybe I’ll believe you if it sounds more reasonable.”

“I’m telling you right now it’s anything but. Everything that happens is so far out of the scope of what you know that you’d say I was more insane than I currently am. I think it’s better off you don’t know.” She weighed her options in her mind. He was staring at her, his fisted hands encroaching on her personal space, and it didn’t look like he was taking no for an answer.

“Okay,” she sighed. “You… You punch a rift through space and time when you’re eighteen.”

“I do?”

“Yes.”

“Do I defeat the titan?”

She snorted. “Fuck no. It’s still here by the time you come back here. But that’s even later.”

“As many years as you?”

She held up both her hands to emphasize her point, and his cold gaze zeroed in on what she planned to do with it. “Those are two branching paths. One where you know me. One where you don’t. That path is from one where you don’t meet me. So it’s past me, actually. Magic is stupid and I hate it but this is what happens when Gods interfere in mortal affairs.”

She’d lost him. But that was fine. He didn’t particularly seem to care.

“So when DO I defeat the titan?”

“You never defeat the fucking titan.”

He grunted and grew more hunched in than before. “Then when do I defeat Angel then?”

She groaned. “No.”

“Why not?” He demanded. 

“Do you want listen to me or not, kid?”

“Not if you’re going to tell lies,” he growled and began to close in on her again, eyes fiery and analyzing. “Maybe you are lying. Maybe I should kill you here and now. You got sent here by that vampire, didn’t you? Answer me, demon.”

She bit her lip hard, enough to draw blood, and he got a good look at those jagged teeth. His jaw tightened. This creature couldn’t be an ally. Not a demon. She was a monster. Just another thing to kill. That’s all she was. He shouldn’t even be talking with her. He should be killing her. Monsters were meant to be killed.

“You’re not much of a joker these days, huh.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Sorry, I just... I’ve been trying really hard to never interfere because this whole thing was weird, and I didn’t want to influence you in ways I shouldn’t. But you’re here. And I can’t ignore you. Fuck, I guess I underestimated how much you wanted to hunt me down. I couldn’t help being a part of your life, no matter how hard I tried.” The creature’s mouth curled into the façade of a human grimace.

He should have been disgusted. His throat tightened.

“I wanted to prove to him I was strong enough.”

“I get it. Really, I do. But kid, if he knew that you met me, you know he’d be furious. If you tried to bring me back as a trophy, fuck, imagine what that might do.”

“He’d be happy if I killed you.”

“Connor, you can’t kill me. Not even I can kill me. And if Holtz had any evidence at all that you even _seen_ me, he’d be pissed.”

“Anything can be killed. I’m the Destroyer!”

“Yeah. I know. I watched you grow up. God, that feels weird saying out loud. But think about it. Your dad _lied_ to you about me. He kept you from ever tracking me down. Do you really think it’s because he was afraid? Has Holtz ever been afraid?”

He scrunched his nose, and faltered, a growl growing up from the back of his throat. “Stop making me think about this!”

“No. He hasn’t.” Well, cat was out of the bag now, she might as well go whole ham. As she sat there against the tree and faced the conflict boy that approached her step by step, she struggled to get the words out as quickly as she could.

“I’ve been here far too fucking long to not know exactly what he’s thinking. He wanted you as far away from me as possible so I wouldn’t spoil his brainwashing tactics. He’s been grooming you, Connor. He stole you away. I was there the day that you were taken from Angel. The vamp tried to jump in after you, into the rip. He tried. He couldn’t make it. Broody bastard got struck by lightning. But I got through. I was a mistake that Holtz didn’t account for. And you can believe that, you can disbelieve that. I can’t make you do anything. But there it is. The full truth. The one that Holtz has been trying to hide from you for the past fifteen years.”

That was the wrong answer. Because a spear erupted from her shoulder and pinned her like a kebab to the tree. She gasped with pain as her eyes flew to the wound. Connor stood there from where he’d thrown it, waiting for the poison to take affect. The nerve agent he’d dotted it with should have had her shaking in seconds and dead a minute later. But she wasn’t. She was glaring at him with a look of pain on her face, but that was it.

“You’re wrong,” he said, a note of desperation in his voice. For the first time, she noticed how tired he looked. There were dark circles under his eyes. His hands were shaking. How long had he been without sleep again? That adrenaline had to wear off soon. “You’re a demon. You’re no better than Angel. I shouldn’t even be talking to you. You should be dead.”

“You can’t kill me,” she growled.

He grabbed the battle axe that had been gouged into a boulder and leveled it with her neck.

“Watch me.”

She chuckled through the pain. The blade was so close, it was cutting the skin. He pushed it in tighter, and she gulped. His hands were really shaking now. “That’s a bad idea, Connor.”

“My name is Steven!”

“Steven – whatever – you don’t want to do that. It’s a bad idea.”

“Don’t… Don’t tell me what to do.”

He raised the axe to strike.


	7. That Terrible Second Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, this chapter was a pain in the ass to edit.

And then the adrenaline wore off and he folded like a house of cards.

Connor passed out from exhaustion. The poor kid was out cold unconscious from weeks out without a chance to sleep. He’d pushed himself just a little too far, and that adrenaline had finally worn off.

Shift slowly crawled closer, rubbing the wound he’d left in her neck that would heal moments later, and cursed internally. She had pushed her luck in talking to him. He would never listen to her now.

As she got closer, his scent became more and more inviting. Intoxicating.

Her stomach rumbled. 

If she left now, there was no way she’d make it to Holtz on an empty stomach.

She pulled Connor’s hair back from his neck, and thumbed his chin. Soft breaths made his chest rise and fall. He was already so handsome now that he finally had a chance to grow into himself. Nearly recognizable now, as the person she once knew. When his face wasn’t wrinkled in fearful rage, she could almost pretend. As she leaned in closer, her heart pounded. Every twitch, every groan had her on edge. But he was out cold. He wouldn’t wake up for this.

The familiar tang of his blood filled her mouth, and she let out a sigh. It tasted like home. Like everything she wanted and missed. And sweet. Virgins blood, and Connors’? It was more than she could have – no, fuck, she wasn’t going down that route. Didn’t even want to think about it. Whatever his blood tasted like shouldn’t matter. She was just here to drink her fill, and get the hell out of here. And she drank deep. The kid could take a lot, she knew. And he would be healed back to good as new, in time. If she was going to be going running after Holtz two weeks out after this, she’d need as much as she could get.

But when it was over, she didn’t leave right away. She stroked the boy’s neck, and listened to the sound of his heartbeat. Gently brushed his lips with her fingers. He was right here. In front of her. Connor, sleeping curled up enough that, maybe, if she wanted, she could fit herself right in there in his arms and –

And she was deluding herself. This wasn’t the Connor she knew. His was still too young, still very much brainwashed, years, lifetimes, dimensions, remade histories away from her. No matter how strong he was, no matter how much he smelled just like the him she knew, this wasn’t the person she knew.

And she needed to go.

Connor woke up dizzy, and furious. He could already tell that his prey was gone. Her scent was stale, hours away by now. But he was covered in it. It assaulted his nostrils, that cinnamon and blood and tang of – of female. He winced as he tried to get up and rubbed his neck. His fingers came back with dried blood.

He swore. She’d actually fed off of him. Like an actual vampire. His teeth grated. It made his stomach churn just thinking about it.

This meant war. He would find her, strip her of all the information he could, then kill her, and bring her head back as a trophy. That’s exactly what he was going to do. _Demons_ deserved to die. He would see to it that he upheld his father’s policy on them. He kept telling himself that, but of course his curiosity was still there, still peaked. In between his hatred and disgust was a fascination, a strange feeling in his chest when he thought back to her.

As he was on the trail hunting her once again, his mind rolled over the conversation with equal parts hatred and inquisitiveness. Her voice, it had been lighter than he had expected. And she had been soft, despite her strength. And her eyes had been strange. Mesmerizing. The way she talked was strange, too. And the things she had said – he’d have to cross reference with his father to see if she was even telling the truth. If she was, then perhaps her information would prove invaluable to learning about the other word and by extension, to killing Angel.

He had to ask his dad about the scent again, too, carefully, nonchalantly. Maybe he had changed his mind on the subject, after so many years had passed. Connor would understand. He was old enough, and he was definitely loyal enough to withstand some harbinger of Angel propaganda. His dad had to know that Connor wasn’t some turncoat. The boy might have been insulted if not for the fact that this was his father, his hero. Holtz must have had a good reason. A better reason.

Well, Connor was ready to know the truth. Perhaps they could work together, if this hunt failed. His father and him would be able to take her on without breaking a sweat. Connor grinned at the thought. That demon wouldn’t stand a chance.

Shift was the first one to get to the hunter. Sprinting the entire way there had given her just enough time to get to the man before Connor could catch her, though it left her much weaker than she thought.

Two months had passed when he finally laid eyes on her again. He asked her countless questions with those cold eyes of his the minute he saw her approach her in front of that small smile, but she stayed silent, like the animal he wanted her to be. He must have already known. Two humans left in this godforsaken realm, and she hadn’t fed on one of them. It didn’t take a genius to puzzle out why. She only hoped he underestimated how far that interaction had gone.

He could use anything she said as another manipulation tactic. That was how Holtz worked. Every word could be twisted around into another reason that the kid needed to kill his own father. His _real_ father. She was sure Holtz would just jump at the chance to abuse that power. But she could only wait and see.

Connor wasn’t far behind. Tracking her newly laid scent had led him right to the man, much to his chagrin, and if he wanted to run off again it would look far too suspicious. He was resigned to ending his chase. From afar, Shift breathed a sigh of relief.

Connor had been so close in catching her again, but to come back empty handed – No. He had information. He knew what she looked like, how she fought. The hunt was on, and no way in hell was it over. There would be another chase, one he wouldn’t fail.

But for now, he was stuck acting as though he had a successful session out in the wastes. There was no way he could come clan to his father. He’d lied to the man about where he’d been. He’d been completely defiant, going after the very thing that Holtz claimed didn’t exist, and shouldn’t be talked about.

Lying wasn’t something that Connor did. But his father had lied too. And he wasn’t sure what to think of that.

The reunion was certainly loving, but that tension weighed over both of their heads. Holtz couldn’t say a word. His boy had to have been fed on, that much he knew. But if he were to admit that he knew anything, that he had been attacked too, then all of that work, all of that trust he’d built, it would be gone. His Steven would know that the man had been lying knowingly, and that tiny crack would be more than enough for that shebeast to get her claws in him and upset all of his meticulous work.

Holtz had spent the last fifteen years pretending that creature didn’t exist, gaslighting his child in order to keep focus away from her straying words and towards the light of justice. But then, he was stuck in this Schrodinger’s box of not knowing what the boy had learned. What had she said to him? Did he even know she existed, had she got to him in his sleep? How much must he make this boy unlearn? How much harsher should the punishments be?

And the boy was silent about it the first day back. Licking wounds, the man could guess. Perhaps he’d been caught off guard by that dreaded creature. Perhaps he didn’t even know what had got him. The bitch was strong, if she bested his son by surprise it would have been a blow. Perhaps this had been what she had been waiting for this whole time. Did the beast need Connor mature in order to feed? He cursed her name.

Holtz had to look for a way to kill her, and soon. His resolve and motivation hardened into a single-minded hatred. There was no such thing as a demon that couldn’t be killed. Everything had a weakness. If it took him years, he would manage it. Holtz was a man of patience. His life was waiting. In the meanwhile, he’d have to make sure his son stayed safe, and pure from the creature’s falsehoods.

Connor glared out into the tree line because he KNEW that she was there. He could smell her, feel her watching him. He had been so close, so desperately close, and his own body had betrayed him. He’d never failed before. It was like salt in a wound that she was still following them. Half of him wanted to throw himself right back into the hunt and end it – he’d be faster, stronger this time. But she still had information he wanted to glean. So, he resigned himself to his hatred at failing in a challenge for the first time.

And he had to wait, for fear of suspicion. Connor and Holtz were at a standoff of tension and treachery only acceptable thanks to their close bond, and were working diligently to maintain a façade of normalcy for the time being. 

So, Connor decided to make the best of things. He decided to ask that question that had been weighing on his mind this whole time. Maybe _that_ would end this armistice, and he could stop feeling so bad about lying to his father.

They began their travel into one of the many ruins that Quor’toth held, the remains of an attempt at society. Sometimes, some creatures intelligent enough to gather and think decided that it was perfectly reasonable to try setting up a civilization in the middle of the world’s worst hell dimension. They didn’t really take into account the titans that roamed the earth, including the semi intelligent god that remained wrapped in the mystery of whether it was named after the dimension, or if the dimension was named after it. Every attempt at a town or city got wiped out soon after they were founded. At this very moment, Connor would bet his life on another small village getting burned to the ground on the horizon, where that moving mountain was lurking.

He shouldered his pack, and kept walking.

“Dad,” he began as they crossed a ruined bridge, “do you… Do you remember that scent? From way back?”

“What scent?” Holtz’s voice changed immediately from that relative calm to a chill that Connor hadn’t heard from him in years. The boy’s heartbeat quickened. Going against his father like this, bringing up things he shouldn’t – it wasn’t often that felt he was doing something so _wrong._

“The one that was around us before. It was always following us, remember?” He was careful not to add that he could scent it even now, this trail on the wind, lest that anger his father further.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Steven.”

Connor grit his teeth. “But, dad-“

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and we are not going to discuss this.” Holtz narrowed his eyes at the boy. “Whatever happened out there is a lie. Let that be the end of it.”

Connor _knew_ it was a lie. He knew that she was a manipulator, that she was looking for ways to make him think of things that he knew were wrong. He didn’t need his father to tell him that. She had to be in league with Angel. Connor could kill her! End their problems! Yet his father was treating him like… like a child! He didn’t even have the gall to come clean to Connor when it was so obvious she existed.

“But there’s something out there!” He tried to argue.

“Steven, drop it. Now.”

Connor didn’t understand it. She was a veritable treasure trove of information pertaining to Angel, even if half of her words were strange contradictions and manipulations about supposed time travel. And she was an opportunity! He could finally hunt something as strong as him. Why couldn’t Holtz see her for what she was? Why did they have to pretend that she didn’t exist? What was being hidden from him?

Connor hated lies. He’d have to figure things out for himself, if no one would bother to fill him in. He’d question her. Corroborate what she said with his father. Then kill her. The perfect plan.

So, Connor got crafty. He asked his father about the other dimension instead, seeing as she was a dead end. He would have to learn about the other world if he were going to survive in his planned hunt for the vampire, something he kept as covert as he could from his father – that being, not particularly covert at all. Being raised on tales of an evil vampire and the justice that Holtz espoused – it was only natural that the boy feel righteous fury enough to want to breech worlds just to honor his father’s name. His father never even had to say a word. 

Holtz himself wasn’t from that world really - but he could still offer some vague pieces of information. Mostly about the best ways for tracking, the biomes that were far less difficult to traverse, the much greater amount of humanity to expect. He didn’t care much for the specifics. Angel mattered more than anything, and Holtz had become rather single-minded. Many questions just detracted from time that they could use to train Connor, in his mind. Physically, and mentally. Never actually telling Connor it was for Angel, never fully crossing that line that would show the puppet strings, but just enough.

Just enough.

Training grew in intensity in the few next months. It seemed at every moment, Holtz was trying to question his loyalty. Everything was an unspoken test, and every single one of them, Connor passed. No amount of torture would keep him from the eyes of the prize. He knew what the main goal was in the end, after Shift, after this dimension. Angel. It would always go back to Angel. He trusted his father with his life. And this is what he needed to do.

But those bits of information from the other world that he’d gleaned from Holtz corroborated what Shift had said. Boys and girls existed in that other world. Holtz had told him a little bit about that. Something about different bits – just like what she had said. It took all of his willpower not to immediately ask him what tits were and how they could be used to one’s advantage in battle.

Holtz didn’t want to explain what procreation entailed, though, and Connor didn’t yet have enough information to even _know_ what he didn’t know, so that conversation was never had. Thankfully. Holtz was hoping that day would never come. He gave him only enough to sate him without asking anymore questions, and then they went immediately back to training. The important thing was, at least some of what Shift had said had been the truth. Which meant there _was_ importance in talking to her again. Maybe he could find a way to test out those fire powers too. She was exceedingly interesting when he wasn’t busy brooding on how to kill her. There were many aspects of her just waiting to be exploited. What was she capable of?

In between trying to psyche himself up to kill her for her assumed allegiance to Angel, he was finding himself almost distracted in how often he thought about her.

Shift watched from the shadows, feeling like more of a peeping tom than usual. Unfortunately, she couldn’t see the cogs turning in the kids’ head. All she could see was a focus in his work. But it looked, she hoped, that he was going to focus on the vamp, and not her. That was good, she thought. Right?

Her current plan as it stood was wait for shit to hit the fan and for him to find his way out of here, then follow after him and warn Angel about what she knew was going to happen. They’d know Holtz was alive, they’d know what he planned to do, and they’d know about everything that would happen after the fact. She still had to deal with Cordelia eventually, but that was a tomorrow problem. And as long as she caught it before she got bad, before Connor… Well…

She wouldn’t let that happen.

Connor bided his time under the impression it would be a while, but that opportunity came closer than he thought, when Holtz said that his next order of training would be go out hunting right in the thick of a horde. Now, these beasts were particularly annoying. Black scales, two legs and a chittering language that could never be mistaken English, they had massive fangs in a set of these jaws that could unhinge, and a bite from them guaranteed the loss of a limb. But no weapon would pierce their hide. Holtz was sending Connor out with nothing but his fists.

Connor rose to the challenge, but he also saw this as a greater opportunity. With his father gone for a month to leave the boy to his own devices, the Destroyer could also catch Shift off at the pass before she disappeared with him. Then Connor could corral her with these creatures and hunt her and them down simultaneously. Simple enough. And fighting her in hand to hand combat… Yeah. He could do it. Totally. He wasn’t scared.

The moment the father and son separated, he was back on his warpath.

Shift could smell his scent the moment he got close. She cursed. Fuck, honestly, she should have seen this coming. Holtz was a kilometer out from her, she was right in kiting distance of that horde of monsters she’d been carefully avoiding, and she had just allowed herself to get thrown into this trap. She’d been lulled into a false sense of security. It had been weeks, she couldn’t have known he would have been this impulsive-

Well. She probably should have.

Really stupid on her part.

Well, if she had anything to say about it, she was going to get the fuck out of dodge and put as many of those freakshows between him and her as she could in the process. 

She ran, he followed, and that déjà vu hit hard. It hit even harder, when he cornered her in front of what turned out to be a sheer cliff face, and definitely not an escape route. The trees waned into stone and plateau at the base of the bluffs, and as she surveyed the rocky summit, a pit in her stomach grew that told her there was no way she’d be able to scale it in time. And then Connor arrived with three sets of those monsters on his tail. She turned, saw him streaking right for her, saw the beasts, and groaned.

“Dude, what the _fuck_ are you even doing!?”

“Hunting you!” He managed to shout out just before he slammed her into the cliff.

The sheer resounding slam of rock left a massive crack in the foundation. It snaked its way comically up, until the cracks branched out beneath the collection of boulders at the very top. Connor had her against the rock with a concussion that had everything a little starry. But she was still salient enough to watch those boulders started to rumble, turn to the kid, and sigh.

“I don’t know why I ever fuckin’ marri-“

Those black chitined beasts stopped short just as Connor and Shift got covered in twelve tonnes of boulder, uncertain what to do. Had they just… killed the Destroyer? They’d actually done it? Truly dead? That monster had already taken out an entire score of their kind, but a cliff had killed him?

Then the giant pile of boulders started rumbling, and they realized perhaps they had picked the wrong fight. Unlike most creatures in Quor’toth, these beasts were intelligent enough to live to fight another day, and ran off with their bulbous abdomens between their legs.

Shift sent Connor hard back into the stone tomb that had them shoved up against each other. The granite cracked like brittle shale under his back, but he was right back up again in seconds, roaring and cracking her jaw with a right hook. Rocks tumbled down all around them and broke into pieces as every punch and jab ripped the very scenery to shreds. The ground beneath them shook. Every moment was one she spent looking for any possible way out of this enclosed hell that he seemed to revel in. He was having the time of his life finally able to truly fight the monster of his dreams at full power, and not in the desperate adrenalin filled throes of exhaustion. His eyes were alight with energy and curiosity. He’d had a good night’s rest, a full stomach of food, and an itching to see how far he could push her. She had JUST fed and yet he made her mouth water.

This was dangerous.

The rocks finally crumbled away, and Shift went running. That didn’t last long. Not even her tiger form was fast enough to scrabble away from him, and when he got a hold of her tail she was both surprised and taken aback. She was even more taken aback when he used it to fling her back into the broken rock face of the cliff. The Destroyer’s strength was so great that the appendage ripped in his hands. Blood and gore and striped fur went flying as she fell right up against the cliff, hard, seeing more stars than before.

A tiger was going to do fuck all to this little monster. She coughed and got back onto her feet – two this time, not four – in order to face him. 

“How did you do that?” He questioned, right before he flung himself against her again.

“Maybe stop trying to kill me and I’ll tell you!” She snarled, barely dodging a hit that _would_ have broken her nose and _could_ have sent her brain out from inside her skull. But now that there weren’t rocks in the way and the dust had settled, they were on equal footing. No more surprise rounds, no more playing games with stupid weapons or playing games with who was exhausted and who hadn’t eaten in weeks. It was just her, and him.

And she knew every technique. Every punch, every kick, every flip and every attempt to tackle, she was prepared for. He racked his brain quick on his feet for ways to get her off her sturdy footing. But she seemed to know it all. How closely had she watched his training? It’s like she had done this countless times before. Everything he did, she had a counter. Infuriating. She knew how hard he would try land a punch, and she acted accordingly. More evidence that she had been watching from the shadows this whole time, like a stalker. It set his teeth on edge.

And then there was her strength matched his. That was even more alarming. She was strong. Earth shatteringly strong. She could take his kick in her palm and turn it into a force that would send him flying into a tree. Then he’d be picking himself out of the leaves and wasting valuable time as she tried to escape. She wouldn’t make it of course, but still. She knew. She knew everything. He couldn’t relax, not once, lest she take that chance over him.

He had to pull out a few new tricks just to get her on the ropes. Even then, she seemed to have the same kind of limitless energy he did. They had lasted how long now? Hours? The sun was hanging low in the sky and they were still going in this violent stalemate. Sweaty, broken, blood pooling at their feet, one of them on fire, and neither giving the other _any_ chances. Surrounding them were the remnants of what had been a clearing and forest. It was unrecognizable. Not even the local wildlife dared tread on the land they made shiver.

“You have to tell me how you do that thing,” he gasped in exasperation when he caught her off from another transformed attempt to get away. She turned back with a quizzical expression in the midst of another punch.

“It’s just a stupid form! It’s not even that special!”

“But it’s an entire other creature!” He whined. “How cool is that?”

“I’m sorry, are we supposed to be fighting or going gaga over superpowers?” He blinked at her, and she sighed as she took the chance to run a hand through her ragged hair. “Fuck it. I forget who I’m talking to.” 

His body stretched in a snap. The kick got her square in the chest and sent her coughing onto the dusty ground. She struggled back up onto shaky feet just as he was attempting to pin her down, and instead it was him that ate dirt when she kicked his feet out from under him just before he jumped her. He tried to end his fall into a tumble, but then she turned just in time to pin him to the ground, wrenching his arm back and snarling against his ear.

“Stay the fuck down,” she growled, fulling realizing that was going to do fuck all. He was already trying to force her off with brute force, and he was winning. She weighed nothing, and it was like less than nothing throwing her off him into another nearby rock.

His eyes caught sight of a sharp rock where he lay against the ground, and he grabbed it before launching himself into her and pinning her against a tree. Those flames had been catching his eye this entire time. They were as mesmerizing as she was, and she was covered in them. Every broken bone, every wound just healed almost as soon as he made them. Liquid flame, like her blood coursed with it. He had to test something.

Her voice jumped octaves into a screech when he hacked off her arm. If it had been a knife or sword, it would have been quick. Not painless, but quick.

But he just used the sharp stone to dig right into her shoulder, with no sign of empathy in sight. She shrieked, fought back against him, but he had her well and truly pinned. When he got as far as he could, he tore off the limb the rest of the way and noted with awe as far larger flames grew in replacement for the lost appendage. He got a front row seat to watching the new arm begin to grow from a fire so hot that it singed his face. He dropped the old one carelessly.

“How much more can you heal?” He demanded.

“You’re fucking crazy,” she snarled. Her eyes were smoking.

He actually hesitated. For a demon. He couldn’t believe that he was allowing himself to feel ashamed. But he was. And his mind was starting to fight itself again. He couldn’t believe he was doing this, but against his better judgement, his grip was loosening around her shoulders. Her arm grew back at a blistering pace in front of him, and the heat from the fire caused sweat to bead on his brow above curious eyes. She slowly backed away from him, but she didn’t run. She needed to move slow, not trigger his instincts, make it seem like she wanted to talk. Wait until there was an opening. And for her arm to fully form.

“If you want to know things,” she said hissed, beginning to circle him as he did the same, “then ask them. Stop trying to kill me.”

“I’m not going to just kill you,” he argued gruffly. “You don’t die easily. I just needed to weaken you. So you wouldn’t feed on me.”

“I don’t die.”

He grinned a goofy grin. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Your dad never did.”

Connor faltered. “He… he’s not me. He’s not the Destroyer.” He stood up straighter as though he could fit better to the name. “Everything can die.”

“Connor.” She rubbed her face in exasperation and came back with flecks of blood. “I’m telling you know, there’s no point. Listen, let’s just agree to disagree with this shit, you do your whole brainwashing thing, and we’ll pick this up after you get out. You can even pretend you never saw me. Sound good?”

“I’m going to kill you. It’s a matter of when. And how much you’re willing to tell me.”

“God you sound like Holtz. Please stop.”

He slowly closed the gap between them. He thought he was being slick, but she was watching his every move. “How far does that fire go? What can you do with it?”

“Everything I want. I could set this forest on fire right now if I wanted.” 

His eyes went real wide. “I wanna see that.”

“You’d fucking die you nub.”

“No I wouldn’t! I’d – I’d hide behind something.”

“I’m not setting the forest on fire.”

“You’re boring.”

She let out a brisk snort. “Me. The boring one. Never thought I’d see the day.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” He was closing the gap slowly but surely. She kept taking a subtle step back, and he took two forward. Shift was just thankful he wasn’t trying to beat her with her own arm. “That’s just another one of your lies, isn’t it? Stop playing these games.”

“Alright, I literally can’t prove anything either way so there is no point to this circular conversation we’ve already had. Look - let’s just talk about fire.” She lit her hand on fire and waved it around his face. “Look see? You like fire, right? Hacked up my whole ass arm just to see it. Fire – ow.” He’d broken her hand out of reflex. And now she was pinned to the cliff. Again. Excellent. She looked up at the broken cliff, back to him, and groaned.

He didn’t attack. Just stared at her. That bloody, battered face of hers had begun to haunt his dreams.

The kid had grown even more since the last time they’d met. Taller. He almost enveloped her against the rocky cliffside. And his body was blockier now. She’d felt it when she’d been hitting him with everything she had. She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks again.

Connor narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re doing that thing again.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she muttered.

“The face thing.” He forced her to look him in the eye, and it got steadily worse.

“It’s called a blush, smart one.”

“Why?”

“Abbreviation of blood rush?”

“Why would your blood rush to your face? Are you cold?”

She snorted. “No. You’re sweating all over me. It’s making me steam. And that’s the problem. You’re too… Close.”

“What would me being close have to do with it?”

“I see you and your fake dad haven’t had the talk yet,” she deadpanned.

“What talk.”

“No.”

He pressed in closer with a raised brow. “What talk, Shift?”

“That… That… That is illegal what you are doing right now.” She tried to pull away, but there was no melting into the stone. She was stuck with Connor’s eyes on her, inches away and full of curiosity. She gulped. “What… What if I tell you more about the other dimension, the one you came from? You’re curious about that, aren’t ya?” Please be too curious to pay attention to anything else, Connor. Follow the bouncing ball, Connor, you know you want to.

He chewed on his lip in deliberation, then finally, reluctantly pulled away. “Fine. But I want to see more of that fire power stuff. Can you breathe fire? Can you make it into like, whips? Or knives? How hot can you make it?” His eyes went alight with excitement as he spoke, though his frown was still set in stone.

“One question at a time. First. Let go of me. Ah ah ah-“ She stopped him before he could argue. “We’ve have this conversation before. I’m not gonna run. Remember?”

His muscles tensed in reluctance, but he still eventually let her go, barking out a quiet, “fine,” as he did so. He kept his hands hovering by her, just in case.

She felt torn about that. His scent dissipated so she could actually breathe without short circuiting, but then Connor was gone.

“My father spoke about metal things,” he muttered. “People stay in them instead of moving from place to place.” He’d start with an easy question, to see how much he could weight the information she gave him. “What do you know about those?”

“Houses, you mean?” She raised an eyebrow. “There’s not exactly massive titans on the horizon in that world, so it’s pretty easy for people to live, ya know, sedentary… That’s actually the norm.” This was good, she told herself. This was a good thing. He was calming down, and she could have small talk with him that, hopefully, wouldn’t lead into him trying to kill her again. They were both spent, and neither would appreciate having to control a form like the one that came with a stake to her heart.

What she said did corroborate with the few bits of information Connor’s father had given him. She wasn’t lying there. But now he didn’t know what else to ask. His eyes dropped in thought as he examined how best to progress. She wasn’t fighting back, it wouldn’t be difficult now to grab her by the throat and quickly snap her neck. Truthfully, he didn’t want to think about it.

He couldn’t admit to himself that he was stalling.

“What about the people?”

She leaned against the rock nonchalantly. Her scent was all over him. It tickled his nose and pulled at his stomach in confusing ways. After all of that fighting, that brutality of actively trying to kill each other in every possible way with no pause for breath, nothing but the punching and kicking of body against body, an odd tingle was fluttering up his spine. Endorphins were being released and wires were being crossed in ways that he’d never imagined, and still couldn’t quite understand. And she was right there, just standing there, blushing like she said. And she was watching him too. Connor feel his own face prickling. He wished he knew why.

“Loads. Billions. Too many to ever count. They have technology you’d never dream of, you know. Things that are magic to you, but not to them. People dress differently too. They use machines to make clothes instead of making them themselves.”

“How do they have time to do all that?”

She shrugged. “It’s so peaceful, they fight each other instead. They got nothing better to do than to squabble over who gets what resources. They got nothing to do but innovate and destroy.”

He watched her with a frown. “That… That doesn’t sound right. They sound like demons.”

“Now you’re getting it.” She pointed at him. “Humanity. It’s a real piece of shit sometimes.” She grinned. “But I choose to love it. If you don’t, then you’re stuck hating something that can’t be changed.”

“I don’t believe that,” he said in that gruff tone that reminded her of that father they’d left behind a dimension away.

She shrugged. “Believe what you want. But it’s true.”

“You’re going to start talking about dad again, aren’t you?” His expression darkened. “Spouting lies.”

“You mean Holtz? The guy that stole you right from your real daddy’s arms?”

She felt like she deserved the elbow that connected with her neck.

Seeing as she was unable to talk, Connor took the liberty of talking for her. “I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say that my father is nice, or good somehow. That he didn’t kill my _real_ dad’s family. That he isn’t a monster, a _vampire._ That just because he has a soul, that suddenly makes up for all of his crimes.”

“Kinda – kinda does yea,” she coughed out. He plunged his elbow in harder.

“You won’t show me how your fire works, and you do nothing but lie when it matters. So maybe I should just kill you here.”

She couldn’t breathe well enough to argue.

“I should,” he said. His eyes darted between where her hands were – grabbing at his arms – and her face. Her eyes were wide and red, and every time she looked at him, her pupils went from thin slits, to wide, black spots. “Then I could show dad that I’m strong enough to kill you,” he muttered. “I’d bring back your head on a plate.”

She finally got the leverage to throw his arm off, and rubbed her neck. “Connor.” She spoke with intent.

“That’s not my name.”

“We’re just going to end up having the same conversation over and fucking over again at this rate. Do you want to?” She watched him closely. “I’m willing to. But you can’t keep being blind to the obvious, here. I’m also willing to leave you alone, but it looks like that plans’ out the fucking window. So we got two fuckin’ options here. Either we keep playing this dumb game, or you actually open your ears, and listen to me.”

“There’s nothing to listen to!”

“You’re not willing. I get that. And I’m no good at deprogramming.” She stalked closer, and he took a few surprising steps back at her audacity. But she kept going, until it was him that was being pinned. He tried to pull away but he’d run out of room. There was only tree. For once, his arms didn’t seem to work. Her eyes were focused on his. Entrancing, hypnotizing. He couldn’t look away. He couldn’t think straight.

“But, Connor,” she commanded. “I’m not here to hurt you. Or find some way to play games with your head. The only person doing that is Holtz. I came to the worst hell for one reason and one reason alone, and that was to protect your mind. God knows you don’t need help with the rest.” She narrowed her eyes.” Do you even know what you are?”

“What?” He spat childishly.

“A pawn. A strong pawn, but a pawn nonetheless. That’s what everyone wants you to be. A pawn that questions nothing. A pawn that thrives off of affection and loyalty and comfort. A pawn that will take a compliment and run with it to the end of his days, right into the middle of an army if they bid it. That’s what Holtz wants you to be. That’s what Jasmine will want you to be. Sometimes, that’s even what Angel will want you to be. That’s what everyone expected of you, from the moment you were born. A mindless soldier. A muscle-head.” Her eyes were slits again. “And maybe it’s shitty of me to say that I’m different. All I can say is I’m just here, for you and you alone. Connor, _you_ are my allegiance.”

It was too much. His arms were shaking. He couldn’t believe her. He didn’t want to believe. He shoved her away with a roar, and didn’t realize just how hard that meant.

Shift flew. Fifteen feet up, straight across the devastated clearing and into the cliff. Her head broke her landing, her eyes rolled back, and her slowly slumped to the ground. A trickle of blood trailed beneath her. If it wasn’t for the rapid breathing expanding her chest, he could have thought he’d killed her then and there.

Connor heaved and shook like he’d just gone another hundred rounds with her. More beads of sweat fell, these ones chilling. It had been the way she’d said it. The way she’d stared at him the whole time, never once looking away, like every word was the most important thing in the world. He _knew_ all the answers, everything his father ever told him made s _ense_ , it was _logical_ , there were no holes in the tale that man spun for his son. And yet, here she was again, messing with his mind. He couldn’t stand it.

He thought about approaching her, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. She was right there. He could finally finish the job, it would have been child’s play. But something kept his feet rooted to the spot. He couldn’t even look at her.

His fists clenched, he turned, and he ran back to get the rest of those beetle monsters.

He had to kill _something._


	8. Wandering Soldier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was 2k to start with, but it was severely underdeveloped. It's now a hell of a lot better.

And he did. A good chunk of an entire species died that day to make for the lack of sense in Connor’s mind. To be fair, it was rare these days that anything made much sense. Holtz and Connor were supposed to be the close. This was the clinch point, the part in the boy’s life when he should have been gearing up for what he knew would be his greatest hunt. This was the point for Holtz when all of those subtle stories about Angel would push the boy out to find a way out of this hellhole, while he grew older and weaker as the days went by. His Steven was supposed to succeed where he had failed, and the greatest loyal victory would be in the boy never knowing that it wasn’t his idea.

But that one lie that Holtz refused to admit was driving a very slow, subtle wedge between them. Connor still clung onto him for a sense of what he would call normalcy, but the inevitable was still occurring. His safety net wasn’t quite safe anymore. There was a hole in it. He still felt, deep inside, that there was something his father didn’t trust him with. And that thing was a demon that said things that didn’t make sense. A demon that didn’t exist, according to Holtz.

Well, there was his problem. He was listening to demons. He should stop.

He would. He wouldn’t even hunt after her, he promised. He’d stay as far away from her as possible, and he’d make sure she’d do the same. No more looking for every excuse to run off, no more staring into the forest at night and trying to see if he could catch the reflection of feline eyes looking back. He stayed with Holtz, kept up his training, and tried to keep his mind as far away from her as possible.

This, of course, was an impossible task, because Connor was a teenage boy and just coming into a world where his body did not want to listen to his mind. There was a pretty… Girl? in a world where there weren’t very many pretty things, and he was never known for his tact or his self-restraint. The fact that she was a demon was supposed to knock some sense into him. But that wasn’t hitting as hard as it should.

Now, Connor didn’t know about any of this, he was still of the mindset that she was a demon and nothing more, but hormones do not listen to the mind. Nor do they care if someone has never learned about the birds and the bees. This obsession in his mind may have seemed entirely focused on his own hatred for her, but it intermingled now with random flitting thoughts that didn’t seem to fit in with the animosity he was assumed to have. Why did he constantly think of the taught muscle of her stomach, the vibrant reds of her eyes, and the subtle grin she gave him sometimes when she thought she had the upper hand in a fight, when he should be focused on how dangerous she was? Why did he find himself running over in his mind all the times she’d spoken to him, late at night, just to remind himself of the sound of her voice? It didn’t make any sense, but trying to figure it out only frustrated him further.

Holtz grew more annoyed by the day. Connor wasn’t excelling in his training nearly as fast as he used to. His skills, excellent for the standard of anything that wasn’t superhuman, were lackluster for the man’s taste. He continued to harbor the skills he’d gained, but he wasn’t making the strides he used to. He only achieved the bare minimum, and dragged his feet on everything else. His father would _not_ stand for his insubordination.

And that meant harder training. Connor obviously wasn’t putting all of his mind into his work, when he should have, so Holtz gave him a little push. The boy was superhuman, he wouldn’t mind a little beating here and there, it’s not like it did anything but cause severe psychological damage.

And that helped, at least a little. It made Connor have to think about what was immediately in front of him instead of what was silently watching him from the trees. Constantly being told to look down at the tracks he was hunting, having his nose rubbed into the kills he nearly didn’t accomplish, it was enough to fire him up. He wanted to please his father. It put the proverbial blinders on him. It made him harsher, worse, more toxic than ever before. And it wouldn’t last.

It didn’t. When Holtz played another game of tie-Connor-to-a-tree-and-leave-him-for-the-wolves, the boy found that he was once again left to his own devices. It was another attempt to get Connor to try and learn from his mistakes, and to hone his senses, and at first, it was going as planned. The man had shaken him down for every possible weapon or tool he could have used to his advantage, patted his son on his shoulder, and let him there with little more than a nod. The boy already knew what he needed to accomplish, and they didn’t need to talk about it.

Connor didn’t have the time to think about what that meant. And he didn’t need to. His father and him, they were on the same wavelength. They knew what the other thought, and Connor knew what was expected of him as well. He hadn’t been hitting his targets, but that would change today. And there was nothing wrong his dad, and nothing wrong with what they were doing. His father was lying, yes. But he needed to stop thinking about it. So what if a demon existed. So what if she knew about the other world. So what if he was deathly curious about what her existence could mean. So what if he felt oddly warm whenever he thought too long about her. None of it mattered. None of it was his goal.

He would kill Angel. He would kill the man, tear him to pieces, and return to his father with the vampire’s ashes to show him he’d succeeded.

He was working through the ropes with his teeth when a tiger crept out from the shadows to watch him.

He stared at it. And then he started trying to get out of his bindings a whole lot harder.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Shift said when she stretched and turned back in one smooth motion. This was already a terrible fucking idea. He’d left her alone, hadn’t he? He’d been doing everything she wanted.

But it was at the cost of being thrust even faster down the wrong path. He was getting worse, not better. She couldn’t sit here and watch what Holtz was doing to him. And, well, Connor wasn’t right. She could see it in the way he spoke. In the way that all of the events converged and seemed to fall apart like a house of cards. Somehow, in some way, she had begun to make everything far, far worse than before. She could see that wedge, the way it pulled at the two of them, made Connor more hostile and Holtz more heavy handed than he ever intended to be. If she sat by, and let this Connor continue on his merry path, she’d be helping make something so much worse. And if he wouldn’t come to her, then she’d have to come to him.

God, she was going to hate doing this. But he had to see the truth staring him in the face. And she had to try. This was her chance to actually say her piece for once. And she was going to abuse it to its fullest capacity.

“You’re messing with my head,” he snarled. “I don’t want anything to do with you.”

“Really? I thought you wanted to kill me.”

“It’s Angel I need to kill.”

“I thought I was a challenge.”

She meant it as a joke, but it didn’t transfer. The hackles on the back of his neck raised in aggression like a rabid dog. It made her sick to her stomach to such animosity in his eyes, directed at her. This wasn’t working.

“I could kill you if I wanted,” he hissed. “You’re just not worth it. All you do is play mind games. You don’t even set anything on fire. It would be more fun to kill the titan than to kill you.”

“I am trying to help you see the truth, Connor.”

It couldn’t have been too late, she kept telling herself. Maybe she could still get through to him. Maybe there was a chance she could make this break cleaner. Make it end here, bring him to her side and oh what the fuck was she even thinking that would never happen.

But she had hope, she guessed. That’s why she was still here.

“My name is Steven!”

“Your name is Connor.” She sat on a log in front of him. “You’re Angel’s son. Angel, the vamp with the soul and the rap sheet he’s currently trying to balance out by being a pansy. Angel the good guy. Not Holtz. Now, you can strain as hard as you want, but you’re not getting out of these talks anymore. You can’t run away or punch me in the face. Damn, feels nice to not get sliced up for talking.”

Connor strained hard against the bindings. They stretched uncomfortably far. Shift reared back on her seat.

“You’re lying! Angel is evil, and I’m going to kill him! That’s what I have to do. My father, my _real_ father may have just been training me to survive here, but I know more than enough to do it. I’m the strongest thing here. I _will_ kill him. After all he’s done, he doesn’t deserve to walk the earth another day. You’re just an obstacle.”

“Open your mind for fucking once!” She fell forward. Her eyes were wild, and her whole body was strained in desperation trying to get him to see straight. “I don’t know how to get through into that blocky head of yours. I know it’s hard, but surely there has to be some cracks in the seams. You have to see that something’s wrong here. Why would Angel be the bad guy when it’s Holtz that kidnapped you? Why is he training you so hard for something like surviving this stupid place? Can’t you see he’s trying to make you into a soldier?”

“My father saved me!” He snarled. She hated the way that made her shudder. “If it weren’t for him, then I would have dealt with that monster. He gave me a better chance than that vampire ever could. Angel doesn’t deserve the title of father. Not after all of the lives he’s ruined. And if my father is training me to take down that creature, then so be it.”

“Angelus is not Angel.”

“A soul changes nothing. And what you say doesn’t either.” He strained harder and her hackles rose. She had maybe a minute longer before he either broke those ropes, or managed to unearth that entire tree. What the hell was she even doing anymore? This wasn’t solving anything. This was just making it worse. She was going in circles and shooting herself in the foot repeatedly.

“Connor-“

“My name is Steven!”

“Steven is a shitty fucking name, Connor.” She grit her teeth.

“I’d rather use my father’s name hundreds of times than ever hear that name that vampire gave me. Don’t _you_ get it? You know about him,” he implored. “You must. And yet you’re acting like all of those atrocities he committed were nothing. Do you even know how many people he’s killed? Tortured? Tens of thousands of lives.”

She couldn’t hold it in anymore. She rose up with wild, angry eyes and gripped her hair like she was about to pull it out. How could he not see what he was saying? How could think that it even mattered in the end? Thousands of lives? What was that, in the grand scheme of things? What did humanity even matter, in the end, after everything she’d seen? Everything he had yet to see?

She ignored those tree roots beginning to pull out from the craggy earth, ignoring that small part of herself that was screaming at her to keep her mouth shut and keep trying. Maybe she shouldn’t give up and scare the kid into seeing just how stupid this feud was in the first place. Maybe she should keep trying to catch flies with honey.

But she was always an impulsive creature. She couldn’t hold it the fuck in if she tried.

“Connor. I’ve killed millions.” She glared at him, spitting out the words as if it would make him stop, shake him out of this stupid quest. “Far more than Angelus could ever dream of. That’s what happens with you live for thousands of years. Because the world isn’t black and white. People kill. And so do demons. Whether it’s for survival, or because that’s the way we’re programmed, or we’re actually evil. Sometimes a bit of all three. Things change. Times change. Everything changes. It doesn’t fucking matter in the end, in a world where people live and die all the time. But there’s no fucking way I’m ever going to get through to you, is there?” She stared at his face, then shook his head. He was a rabid animal. A mess off gnashing teeth, wild eyes, and a desperate battle cry. Almost free. She’d have to get running if there was any chance she’d make it to Holtz in time.

She recalled the times he’d boasted about being able to find the man in only five days. He used to say it with such pride, and a sparkle in his eye, complete with a flexing of his arm. Based on the rage on this Connor’s face, she’d guess it would be two, three days tops of non-stop running in a beeline back to the man. A new record. He’d be proud if he knew what he was doing.

She started sprinting, and Connor pulled the hundred-year-old tree out of the ground. The roar of anger, desperation, and confusion sent every demon within miles scattering. It wrenched from his abdomen like a jagged wound ripping through his throat. That wasn’t a noise the destroyer made, and they didn’t want to figure out what had triggered it.

Shift was frankly just thankful she’d gotten her fill of evil dad incarnate before she’d thought of this utterly fucking _brilliant_ plan. This much blood made her just fast enough to outrun the unstoppable monster of the multiverse’s worst hell dimension. She shuddered to think of what might have happened if she was weaker.

It felt good to finally say her piece, even if it flew in the face of her “tactful” approach she’d been trying. She’d been too soft. He’d come to know that about her eventually, maybe it was better he hear from her mouth instead of someone like Holtz. But now she’d burned that bridge. That was a wall she had made herself when she’d broken down and told him. He wasn’t ever going to want to look at her, let alone talk to her. She was an enemy now, a real one.

She hated this whole thing, the insistence that she had to play with Connor’s mind. Holtz had started it, but that didn’t mean she had to play along.

Maybe, if she hadn’t said a word about Angel, if she had played dumb… But then she would have accomplished _nothing._ She would have gone through that portal for no reason. Connor would have been the same dysfunctional killer that came into the other dimension with that single-minded hatred that no one had questions. God, this whole thing messed with her head.

Connor found Holtz in two days.

The Destroyer came back panting, and with only one thought in mind. Shift watched from her perch on the branch of a massive tree spanning many feet in the air as he rushed into the clearing, only to see Holtz packing up and readying to go. The hunter was under the assumption that it would take his son at least another week to find him. Thank god he was in one place when she’d found him - in the way of Connor tracking her down. She was still catching her breath from her rush to get here. She’d hate to be the one right front of those fiery eyes.

“Steven,” Holtz said in surprise. “That was two days. Excellent work.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Connor snarled. Shift’s heart was still beating out of her chest, but now it was worse. She leaned forward as much as she could to catch the conversation. Connor was never this forward. It wasn’t like him. She’d pushed him even further than she’d meant to. Damnit.

Holtz’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“She’s killed millions. More than Angel. More than anyone. She has to be worse, and you were pretending like she didn’t exist!”

“Do you even know what gibberish you’re saying right now, boy?”

“I’m talking about Shift! The demon that’s been following us, the whole time! We have to go after her! Come on, she’s close, we need to kill her before she finds a way back into the world.” Connor went straight for the cache of weapons Holtz had confiscated from the boy, and was buckling them back on himself when the man grabbed him by the arms and whirled him around to face him.

“There’s no demon, son,” he tried to command. “You’re speaking falsehoods-“

Connor shoved him away. “Stop lying!” He growled. “I’ve seen her. I’ve been hunting her,” he said, almost smugly. “Because you’re too afraid to.”

“You’ve been lying to me?”

“You’re no better,” the boy muttered. “All of this work. It’s for Angel, isn’t it? I’m supposed to be doing all of this for justice. For the monster that hurt you. What you’ve taught me, it’s not just for surviving this world. You wouldn’t teach me how to kill a, a _vampire_ when they don’t exist in Quor’toth unless there was a good reason, right? You don’t have to lie, dad. _I_ understand.”

Holtz swallowed. The illusion had been dropped.

He had been playing cloak and dagger, getting the boy to want to hunt for the vampire on his own – it would have made the kill so much sweeter, that Angel’s own son would _want_ to do it of his own volition. And there was that added benefit that Connor would never feel as though his father wanted him for only a goal. Holtz _loved_ his son, he would _never_ use him for personal gain. He had no doubt that his Steven would have found a way out of this hellscape eventually, and he would be able to follow. This had been his masterful plan.

But it had been ruined. Acknowledging it now was upsetting years upon years of subtle work that would never have been questioned if not for that shebeast. In front of the man’s eyes, his son’s focus had strayed. Admitting it now, he was sacrificing that unquestioning loyalty for a heavy-handed solution that could still bring him back to the right path, if he said the right words.

And Holtz was a masterful wordsmith.

“Yes, Steven. You’re correct, that monster deserves to die, and I know you would be the perfect executioner to dole out justice. To do what I could not. I’ve told you countless times of the crimes that man is guilty of.”

“Thousands dead, right?”

“Right, yes. And we need to focus on him if we are-“

“That demon has killed millions.” He pointed his hand in the direction of her hiding place up in the branches. Shift immediately began climbing down to look for a different one. “The one you’ve been hiding from me this whole time. The one that you said didn’t exist. But she does exist.”

Holtz kept his trepidation silent in favor of a slim, cool smile, though his eye twitched. “She doesn’t matter. Why are you wasting your time on her?”

“Isn’t killing something as bad as her more important than Angel?”

“Nothing is more important than Angel!” Holtz snapped. Connor reeled back, his eyes wide. For a split second, his father was a different person. It was gone as soon as it came, but it had still been there.

“Why?” The boy demanded.

“You know why. He’s killed my family – our family. Steven, he’s killed everything we’ve ever cared about.”

“Everything you’ve ever cared about,” Connor muttered.

“I raised you, boy,” Holtz hissed, “Does that mean nothing to you?” Holtz quietly crept closer, his chilled eyes imploring. “This could be our mission, together. No more secrets. Justice, nothing more.”

“But…” Connor made a face. “Why do we have to choose between them? Why can’t we kill her too?”

“Because she isn’t the goal here.”

“But I’m strong enough. I could kill her. I don’t know why you didn’t tell me about her. Why did you make me think that I was crazy? Why did you pretend she didn’t exist?”

“Because she isn’t important, Steven.”

“She is! And she – she knows things she shouldn’t! She’s said things about Quor’toth, about us, about you – and the people she’s killed! And it’s true! I asked you about everything I learned, and you said the same.”

“Why would you believe what a demon says?” Holtz patted the boy’s tensed shoulder. “She’s playing with your mind, Steven. That’s what demons do, and why none should ever be trusted. Just enough truth to make that bitter pill go down. You shouldn’t listen to her. There’s no proof she’s the killer she claims she is. See this as a test of your loyalty.”

Connor faltered. “But…”

“But nothing. We need to focus on getting you away from that shebeast. Get out of here, out of Quor’toth - I’m sure we’ll find a way - and end Angel. Destroy him the way he’s destroyed so many others. Together, as I always wished we could.”

“You want me to ignore her?”

“You should have from the very beginning. She followed us in here to play with your head. She’s nothing but trouble.”

“But you… You made me think I was crazy.”

“I was trying to keep her from doing more damage to you,” Holtz tried to argue, with the softest tones to his voice. “You are my son. And I would do anything to protect you. That includes protecting your mind.” 

Connor tensed. “So you don’t think she’s a threat to the outside world.”

“Not as long as we stay away from her. And Steven, you must understand that her accusation sounds insane. Millions of people? She couldn’t possibly. She’s just a girl.” Holtz kept calm, and careful. “Angel should be your goal. Angel, and Angel alone.”

“No.”

The man’s hand on Connor’s shoulder froze.

“I don’t want… I don’t understand.” Connor backed up, confused and angry and not wanting to fight. But Holtz had lied to him. His father knew from the very beginning of the demon’s existence. And he had done it purposely. Every cold look because the Destroyer tried to press it, every time that Holtz that insisted he was mad… Even if all Shift said were lies, his own father wasn’t much better. And he wouldn’t even listen to him. Holtz was shooting down everything he said. Like none of it mattered.

“Killing Angel is justice. There is no other. She is a distraction, like so many others you have dealt with. You have entertained your fascination with her for too long. I want you focused on training and training alone. From now on, you’ll not be going after her. You’ll not even think of her.”

“But she’s strong. Even stronger than Angel, maybe, she can’t be lying about something I’ve _felt._ I could be using her at least!” 

“Steven, you need to stop fretting yourself over things like this. We have a plan. We need to stick to the plan. For both of our futures. Now you know that this is what we’ve been training for, do you want seventeen years of hard work to be useless?”

Connor balled his fists. His father wouldn’t listen to _anything._ Every single argument the boy threw at him that sounded right in his mind was just shot down with the same plan. Connor knew the plan. He lived and breathed the plan. It had been beaten into him countless times. He lived for it just as much as his father did. He trusted in it, and he trusted in the man’s rhetoric.

But Holtz didn’t have to ignore him like this.

“Fine,” the Destroyer said. “The plan. I got it.” He pulled the crossbow off his stack of weapons and strapped it to his arm. “Then I’ll go train for _our plan_.”

Holtz didn’t stop his son stalking off. The teenage outburst would be one of many to come, he was sure. He might have been angry, but the man knew where his Steven’s loyalties lay. In the end, he would come back to him, when his rage had cooled and he realized that their goals still aligned. Holtz was certain of it, just as he was certain of all things related to his Steven. God help him, he didn’t know what the boy was, but he did know he was simple. It was so easy to push it in the right direction, with nothing more than a few encouraging words.

And Holtz was right. Running away from his problems and killing whatever stood in his way, Connor’s mind was already finding ways to wish away the pieces that didn’t fit in his mind. Everything Shift said just hurt to think about, so it was better that he didn’t think about them at all. He had to learn to be more single minded. The person his father wanted him to be. That’s what he was meant to do. And Shift was just another obstacle. Just as the fire demon had feared, her presence had just been another opportunity for Holtz to use as ammunition. There was a pit in her stomach as she realized that Connor’s life had just taken a turn toward an even darker path because of her. She knew she’d fucked it, worse than she ever had before.

Holtz continued the breaking down of his camp and the continued trek into the deeper woods, but when the sun went down, he set himself up again not far off from his original spot. Connor would come back eventually, and he’d be there to welcome his child with loving arms. Until then, he had a plan to form.

As the man gazed into the fire, he cleaned his weapons, and thought.

He couldn’t sit idly by anymore, not after that outburst. What he’d given Steven was a tenuous goal that could so easily be broken if those two spoke again. He’d need to get rid of her once and for all. Steven would never drop this as long as she was there to confuse him. He hadn’t forgotten Shift knew him, and she knew Connor. Either she was one of Angel’s, or an even greater problem he had yet to comprehend.

She was a demon, he reminded himself. And that was bad enough.

Her existence alone would divide his attentions. But this crusade of his son’s would lead to nothing. Holtz knew something indestructible when he fought it, and that girl, that creature…

He could still remember the eyes of the beast when it had pulled itself back from the dead. Something dark, and old. Beyond biblical. He’d said a prayer when she’d left him that night, knowing that the Lord would protect him, but wondering if she was truly one of Satan’s ilk.

Paradoxically, crosses affected her, he knew that much from their scuffles. So did water, holy or otherwise. And she could certainly be hacked to pieces, as long as he was quick enough to get the appendages off before they healed. But nothing ever seemed to get past that other form. Those wings and horns and tail… It sent a tremor through him, even the unshakable Holtz, at the memory of that creature’s blasphemous make. Water would affect _that_ form, certainly, but it didn’t seem to matter. It was unresponsive to pain and weakness. It was untouchable, with a single-minded intention that he would never be able to fight against. Using Steven to kill her was out of the question. Not even that boy would be able to take her down. He had a lot of faith in him, but none so far as to be misplaced.

So, he could destroy the body all he wished, but he could not win against a form that defied God. No one would be able to match that speed, or that strength. They were faced with an impossible creature. Perhaps a well-trained army could take her down, but he hadn’t the strength…

The rumbling of a titan cracked overhead and down went another several acres of deadly swamp. The explosion could have almost been mistaken for rolling thunder.

Holtz smiled as the pieces dropped themselves into place.

The solution was really quite simple. And it killed two birds with one stone. His son would need guidance, a chance to prove himself, and a chance to get out his frustrations while at the same time reaffirming that loyalty that had been questioned. This “Shift” needed to get herself killed.

It was insane. But just might work.


	9. Brimstone

Night settled over the clearing that Holtz set up camp in. Shift unfurled herself from the trees she’d been watching him from. Her white slippers fell down onto the dry undergrowth, and then she took off until she was at the edge of his camp. Her eyes reflected the glow of the fire like twin embers.

Holtz didn’t need to hear her to know that she was there again, watching him. He could feel it. His lip curled as he looked into the tree line and watched that slitted gaze.

“Shift.” He called out. The fire demon flinched. She did _not_ like his name on her tongue. The way he said it, like a soft, hazy breath. It didn’t belong there. “It’s nice of you to finally join me again, after leaving with the boy. I thought Steven would have taken longer. But you led him right here.”

She felt like she was staring into a nest of vipers. She became a pair of orange eyes and stripes just behind the trees instead. She wouldn’t meet him. Not with words. Let him think of her as an animal. And let her be so much faster than him if he tried anything.

He smiled a cold smile at her transformation, and her muscles tensed. “You’ve become a problem, haven’t you? Talking to the boy. You’ve filled his head with lies.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“Of course, it’s not something I can’t fix easily enough. Whatever you may think you’re doing for the boy, they’re negative qualities that can be easily removed. It seems it’s time for another test. Would you like to hear what I have in mind?”

She swallowed.

“You’ve seen those titans overhead, I’m certain. I wonder, what might happen if Connor were to fight something that could obliterate him in a split second. Would he even be able to fight it? Could he pierce its hide? Most likely not. But then, that is what training is for. Pushing one beyond their limits.”

“You’re talking about a suicide mission,” she snarled. She hadn’t even realized she’d changed back. Bitter and rage filled, her claws dug into the dirt, her shoulders hunched. “You’re insane.”

“Perhaps. Connor lives to please me. He would do whatever I asked of him. He knows that Angel is the real goal, even if he is still learning that my will is absolute. That will come in time. We still have time. I may be old, but I am not dead. If I wanted to send him off to kill a titan, he would do it for me, to show me he could. Even if that would kill him.”

She felt the urge to pounce. Every muscle was on a hair trigger. If she just killed Holtz, here and now, made him good and dead, then all of this would be over. There was no reason the bastard was still alive. Connor could take care of himself.

But the kid would never forgive her.

She wasn’t sure she could live in a world like that.

“Why,” she hissed. “Why are you doing this?”

“I suggest you keep a careful eye on him,” he soothed, coldly. “If you don’t, then the object of your obsession may die before it can ever leave this dimension.”

He wouldn’t dare. There was too much at stake. This was all just some cruel joke.

“I suppose you’d think I was bluffing. Perhaps. He is my everything. But I meant what I said, long ago. I would rather have him dead than with you.” He glared at those orange eyes. “The choice is yours. Follow Connor into the maw of the beast and die saving him. Or let him die.”

She hated him. But he had her.

And she knew that Connor was more than dumb enough to agree.

…

Connor didn’t know what his father was planning when they traveled to the foot of the mountains. The two of them had remained aloof every since he had begrudgingly returned to his side. All he knew, was the lies had never been addressed. So he kept his words curt, and so did Holtz, and neither of them felt like anything had changed really, since they never spoke much to each other in the first place unless they had to.

The rumbling got louder the closer they got to the titan, and the Destroyer grew apprehensive. That shivering in the ground was a warning that they shouldn’t be too close. If that didn’t clue them in that they shouldn’t have been there, then the burning landscape sure should have. Along with that screeching roar reminiscent of metal on metal. This giant wasn’t _Quor’toth_ , but this titan was just as strong. It had far too many eyes, a tail that swept whole forests to the side, and a mouth filled with magma that dripped down and turned to obsidian where it landed. The blinding red, bubbling rock clung to large trees and turned what didn’t burn into black, glass statues. With twelve sets of legs, each rumbled like earthquakes every time they moved forward. It moved slow, because it could. Nothing hunted something like this.

Saying it wasn’t as big as Quor’toth itself was like saying that one mountain was slightly smaller than the other. It was still a mountain.

“What do you think, boy?” Holtz asked him when they approached a cliff overlooking the havoc it caused. The rock beneath them rumbled. Bushes gave way to recent wasteland. They stood on the edge of it all.

“It’s a titan.”

“Indeed. A demon stronger than that little manipulator you let spoil your mind.”

Connor grit his teeth. “I guess.”

“I remember when you were young and you begged me to let you fight Quor’toth itself. Numerous times.”

“I was stupid, then.”

“No. You were trying to get stronger. I applaud you for looking for challenges.”

Connor looked to his father. “But it’s not like I could actually fight one, right?”

“You’re backing down from a challenge? That isn’t like you, Steven.”

Connor’s stomach lurched. His father was right. This wasn’t like him. Everything inside him was telling to go. There were so many reasons pulling him right towards that thing’s fiery maw, his heart pounding at the thought that he could be the one to plunge his sword into one of its eyes and puncture the brain inside it. It was the one thing that made sense anymore – he was strong, he could fight, and he should fight. Fighting was simple. Just a back and forth, that was it.

He recalled his fights with Shift, and even that started to get blurry.

But Holtz was telling him to do something, and that meant that he should do it. He must have had a good reason, right? Maybe this was another test. Or maybe his father knew something he didn’t, and this was all apart of a plan. Surely, he wouldn’t just throw the boy to his doom. Even though, his father and him hadn’t exactly been seeing eye to eye lately. Either, his father was always right, and Shift was a liar, or… He didn’t want to think about the other. Not today. That was too much for him to wrap his mind around. Connor was a simple boy, and the thought of treachery from his father was not in his nature.

And maybe he could take down a titan. That girl demon was a liar, just like his father said. He believed it. He had to believe it. So maybe, she lied about this too. Maybe he was known for killing titans, and she just wanted him to be weak! That would be just like her, messing with his head. Her and her stupid fire powers, and her red eyes, and her mouth, a pretty mouth, saying pretty lies…

And now she was making nothing make sense again. He needed to fight something.

“I’ll do it,” he said, his voice quiet. “I can do it.”

“Of course. You’re the destroyer.”

“I am.” And yet, he wavered from his perch atop the cliff. He flinched at the roar from the mountain that moved. The titan was so, so close. He stared at it, the lava that erupted from its maw, and wondered how something as small as his sword could ever hope to pierce its hide. But… he had to try… Didn’t he?

Or… or was this a suicide mission?

“Connor!” Standing at the edge of the cliff, Shift was a mess of tree bark, dirt, and shock. Her eyes were wide, and her shoulders were hunched. Surely he couldn’t be serious. He wasn’t that stupid.

He bristled and stuck out his chest. “I can kill it. And you’re not going to get in my way. All you’re doing is confusing me. You’re the liar.”

“Get in your way – ARE YOU FUCKING BLIND?!” she cried as she gesticulated wildly with her arms. “That thing is literally obliterating the landscape! You’ll die as soon as you – fuck there he goes.” A snarl ripped through her as he jumped off the cliff, catching the burned ruin of a tree branch below to slow his fall. A hundred feet below in the deserted wasteland, he beelined for the monster faster than she’d ever seen him go before.

She walked up to the edge of the cliff and snaked a hand through her ragged hair.

“Guess I brought that onto myself.” She glanced at Holtz’s thin smile with gritted teeth of her own. “That might be the fastest I think I’ve ever seen him go. And I’ve seen the guy when there’s barbecue.”

“You have little time before he gets caught in the crossfires.” Holtz said. “Are you going to let him die?”

She glared at him. “You’re lucky you don’t have maggots in your face, or I’d punch you right now. If I’d taken him young, we wouldn’t have had this mess.”

“If you had taken him young, would you have been able to live with yourself, knowing him as you do?”

“Of course you’re the one to figure it out. Why am I not surprised.”

“I don’t know what kind of future you’re from,” he hissed. “But you will not have my boy. He is not yours to have. And you will not ruin my plans with your distractions.”

“I’ll do whatever the fuck I want, Holtz. That’s kind of my thing.”

“You’re losing time.”

“Yeah yeah fuck you too.” She shoved him to the side, then jumped.

Connor was already halfway to the beast. His feet barely kept up with the speed at which he forced his legs. Beneath him, the brittle charcoal, stone and dirt snapped and sizzled under his leather shoes. If he’d been any slower, they would have melted from under him.

The monster didn’t even see him at first. Connor was an ant attacking a titan, after all. There were trees it could destroy, monsters it could squash beneath its many feet. Its numerous sets of large eyes rolled in its skull all over, looking for things to kill and eat that it deemed worthy of destroying. It spoke few words, but those that did screeched over the horizon.

“EAT. MORE. KILL. KILL.” Though eating anything just burned away in its mouth, nothing dissuading it from ending the world with its maw. It coughed up a volcano or torrential flame, then went back down for more. Anywhere close to its mouth was a temperature that no living thing could survive. In its stomach were temperatures as hot as the center of the Earth.

Connor jumped onto one of the legs, and latched on with two his swords, then started climbing. His wild eyes kept glancing back to the creature, hoping, praying it hadn’t noticed him just yet. He needed long enough, just to get to its head, and make it to its back.

The monster turned one of its many eyes towards him, and began to screech. Magma flowed between its jowls.

Shift grit her teeth. That was loud, even for her. The fire demon followed Connor down the same path into the landscape, but unlike him, she reveled in the heat. Suddenly she was in a world perfect for the monster that she was. The creature brought with it its own hellscape ecosystem. All around it, various imps that could survive these temperatures at the furthest point were picking through the wreckage and screeching at her as she passed. But even they thinned out as she got closer to the center of the destruction. She could only imagine the heat that poor boy was facing.

Using her claws to dig into the closest tree trunk of a leg, she then began her jump from scale to enormous heated scale. The beast itself was uncomfortably hot. Smoke and darkness sizzled up from between chunks of rock-like hide. Connor singed his hands every time he touched it directly. Even his shoes were starting to heat and smoke, their heels on the underside stained black. A long, shuddering roar made him nearly lose his balance as the creature struggled to throw him off like a wolf throwing off a flea.

Connor had to keep going. Maybe if he got to those eyes - He could rip them out, make the thing blind, take it down that way. There had to be a way to kill it. Everything could be killed. That’s what Holtz had taught him. It was only a matter of time.

“KILL!” The beast roared, and raised its leg up now to throw him off. The boy held on for dear life as his whole world turned upside down. He risked a glance at the world below and could only see sky.

“Connor!” Shift cried out. She flung herself toward him, but another leg got in the way. Its boulder-like weight hurdled right into her chest and sent her off several feet back into the air. She barely got another grip on it after several nerve-wracking seconds of flight, but as soon as she did, she was moving again. Like a spider, she was crawling up the giant’s leg and steadily making her way toward the smoking boy. He was too far away - she had to move her fucking ass before he got himself killed. After all this work, it would be her fault his story just ended here. This was never supposed to happen.

The monster turned its head, and let out another ear-piercing roar. “EAT!” The metal inside its body from the blast furnace it was crashed on more metal, and then a burst of fire broke out from between hundreds of rows of ragged glass teeth aimed straight for the defenseless Destroyer.

Connor had to let go just to avoid it. He went free-falling, and watched the earth rise up to meet up him. But then he got a blade dug into the thing’s knee. His wrist screamed in protest as it was the only thing catching his fall, but the rest of him was relieved to not be a puddle on the ground. Heart pounding, he looked down at what would have been his demise. There was nothing beneath him to break his fall, and he was still several hundred feet up. Where was that shebeast? She had been just behind him, he was sure. He was already waiting for her to ruin his plans.

Whatever, it didn’t matter, she was only going to get in the way. Better she be gone. Better he do this alone.

He started climbing again, and another plume of fire rose up just underneath him, far too close for comfort. He climbed faster. Just a little more, and he could make it onto the bulbous, insectoid body with layers of chitin he couldn’t even fathom the thickness of. It was black, and obsidian with thin rivulets of lava bubbling and spitting under the surface, giving the whole body an archaic, world ending glow.

He had to move quickly. If his shoes burned on the ground below, they’d turn to nothing in minutes. He’d need to be quick. Already, he’d closed the gap considerably by making it to the first set of legs, hopping from tree trunk to tree trunk with his red hot blades offering him the only handholds he could find. He didn’t have the claws, not the immunity to heat that the demon gaining on him behind had the advantage of. But he had a plan. He’d get to the neck, then to the eyes, and then start stabbing. He could do this. He’d show them what he was capable of. This what he was born to do. This is what made sense.

Running across the creature’s back proved more difficult than he though. The heat was burning him every step of the way. He held his tongue from crying out, but the leather had burned off and his skin was peeling and cracking and the monster was shaking as hard as it could to rip off the fleas that bit and tore. Connor could barely stay upright as the world quaked beneath him. He lost one of his swords down below in the process, gone forever now and had only one left plus a few daggers and a crossbow strapped to his arm that he knew would be less than useless against this beast. But he had to keep moving. Just a bit further. The faster he moved his feet, the less it would burn.

He could make it.

The creature raised one of its many limbs up to grab him, and a pillar the width of a house swept around the entire back and nape of the creature, and took the kid with it. He cried out a silent scream as the air was forced out from him and, and the force launched him straight into the creature’s horns. Out of reflex, he just managed to get a grip on it, holding on as hard as he could. But he had been this close to being gouged by its meter-long spikes. Just a couple inches above him, the bone knotted into these razor-sharp notches. The horns were covered in them. They were violent protruding tumors, more than actual horns. He stared at it in relief at his luck, then turned to see the twin horn at least fifty feet away from him on the other side of the titan’s head.

Shift had been speared clean through the heart.

He stared at her. She wasn’t moving. The creature did, making her sway, but she was motionless, like a doll. Blood poured out from the massive wound like a faucet. It was as thick as the width of a small tree. Her mouth was dripping with dark red. Her eyes were wide open and there was nothing in them. Dead.

His stomach churned.

But then another roar sounded. He couldn’t cover his eyes, so he was stuck with the noise that shattered his ear drums. It was another reminder of its sheer size, a warning to anything within miles that to mess with this monstrosity was to mess with a god. It was barely alive, more like a force of nature. And it was angry. And hungry. And as soon as it was done, Connor started climbing the horn until he was near the tip, with gritted teeth and far too much confidence. He grabbed hold of the bone, bulged his arms, and with a sharp pull, ripped the tip of the titan’s horn right off its miserable head.

The monster roared in shock, in pain, and in anger at the sheer audacity of the flea that maimed its perfect form. “KILL. KILL. KILL.” The screech of metal returned, louder than jets, louder than eruptions, and filled with malice and rage. Connor held on tight as its head began to shake, to both his new weapon and to the one last bastion of support he had. It took all his strength to keep a grip on the broken horn and keep himself from being flung into ether. He was so high up he felt like he could touch the clouds.

And then the shaking was over, and he had something big enough to gouge out those eyes. Something strong enough to pierce the hide that seemed to get ever tougher the closer he got to its face.

Using the horn, he dug his way with gritted teeth toward the titan’s massive, expansive head. Sometimes the angle was a sheer rock face as the monster tried to shake him off, and then he had to hope and pray he’d dug in that horn deep enough through that chitin. At least the magma wasn’t melting the horn. He couldn’t say the same about his clothes, or his skin, or anything else.

All he felt right now was the adrenaline coursing through his body, but soon enough he’d be in a world of pain. If he kept at this, he was going to end up burned to a crisp. He could only hope the fall after this thing’s demise would lead him somewhere comfortable to rest and heal. He was learning very quickly that his durability didn’t extend to fire.

So he didn’t hesitate. He kept running. Ignored the pain in his feet, and made a beeline for those eyes desperately rolling back to try to get a glimpse of the destroyer on its neck. It wouldn’t have to try long. That’s exactly where he was heading.

Connor got to the huge swathe of land that was its forehead, then threw himself down with the bone out to catch the ridge above one of its many eyes. For a moment, his heart was in his throat was once again, he was faced with nothing but lava several hundred feet below, and once again his arm screamed in protest, but he was safe. Relatively. Swaying from side to side and dangling vulnerably, he finally realized just how big it was. And yeah, that was going to be a little difficult to carve out.

One large, singular mucous filled membrane turned its dilated pupil to him. The eye was bigger than him. Maybe five times his size. Red, with slits of oily green. And it was angry. The ridge moved, the pupil dilated, and the creature breathed in in preparation for another round of magma and fire breath, this one aimed up.

Okay, maybe Connor didn’t really think this through. He wasn’t sure exactly how he was going to get the bone into the thing’s eye. It’d seemed like a good idea at the time! He grabbed the dagger from his belt, but stabbing it in the eye required getting close enough to it in the first place. He reached out, even tried a little momentum rocking back and forth, but he couldn’t get fewer than feet away. The ridge above it was far too large, and throwing himself at it hoping the eyelid would catch his fall was ignoring the obvious that this thing was _far_ too large for his dinky dagger to dig into it. He’d be having to using his own body to punch through, and he wasn’t sure what the temperature of this creature would be so close to its mouth.

He looked down below at the tingling sensation of his legs burning, and realized that the only way out of here was growing increasingly more fire filled.

That maw was getting prepared to blow upward.

Using his arm, he pulled himself on top of the creature’s eye ridge, but then it twitched violently, and suddenly that position became tenuous at best. The scales above it were just in reach, and with his bone to hold him steady, he looked for a better hold, but at that very moment, the creature decided it was going to move its head again in another attempt to shake him off. And there went Connor’s newfound weapon made of titan, knocked out of his hand and rolling into the ether never to be seen again. The dagger in his hand wasn’t piercing those tough obsidian scales and he was running out of space to hold onto. His fingers were burned down to the muscle. He couldn’t hold onto anything.

Another twist of the titan’s head, and he was free-falling.

As he fell, he got a good look at the rows and rows of eyes. They all turned to look at him at the same time. Hundreds of them. All bigger than him, all filled with brutal, animalistic hatred. He looked back at it, then down, and registered that it was preparing to breathe more fire. The maw was slowly opening up to spew, and it was right on target to hit him when it unleashed. He scrabbled in the middle of the air, but no amount of making himself smaller was helping him fall much faster or avoid it. This was going to hurt.

But he wasn’t going to die, right? He wasn’t going to die. There was no way his father was going to let him die. This was just an exercise. Just a trust exercise. His father would never put him in harm’s way, never truly leave him for death. There’s no way Holtz would let this kill him, right? Even as his face heated, even as the fire on the ground got closer and closer, as the maw exploded into flames, as his hair whirled from the air and the sparks turned in plumes of flame that stung his face. He still believed, somewhere in the back of his mind, that his father would find a way to keep him safe.

Until he didn’t. Until the milliseconds passed, and there was nothing but pain. Until he closed his eyes and prepared to meet it, thinking for just that stark moment in time, that Holtz had truly betrayed him.

The hands gripped him tight and a split second later, he was enveloped in leather. He opened one eye slowly, then the other. Then stared at the demon that was Shift.

She had wings.

“You’re fucking stupid, you know that!?” Her voice fought with the roar of the inferno around them. The massive wings fanned out behind her acted a shield strong enough to withstand fires that would have melted hillsides. He could feel the heat, he could even smell the smoke and brimstone. But he was safe. Safe in the arms of a demon, with horns, and a tail, and eyes that still retained a little more red than he was used to. She was positively feral. But when she held him, it was with the firmest and more careful grip she could give him.

Though they were still falling to their deaths.

“You’re alive! Why are you saving me!?”

She kissed him.

“Because I love you, you dumbass!” she cried. Her eyes smoked, her voice barely heard over the screech of the titan bearing down on them. With her face illuminated by the flames, she was positively glowing as she fought back the tears that singed her own face. “Now shut the fuck up and let me save you!”

For a second, he forgot that they were even falling.

Shift didn’t. Shift was waiting for the moment the monster had finished letting out its plume of fire so she could create a more directed fall. There was no doubt about it in her mind. Eventually they were going crash right into the wasteland and magma below. The question was what part had the least amount of magma. And just how much this was going to hurt. Because fuck, this was going to hurt. She was going to be the one landing first, and that wasn’t going to pleasant.

She stared at the ground below that rose up very quickly to meet them, and swallowed. No. Very, very not pleasant.

She held him tight, forced him above her, and used herself to break the fall.

And then they landed.


	10. The Talk

In a sea of bubbling fire and the metallic crashes of a titan’s roar, there was nothing else. Nothing but devastation, and the sound of what the end of the world surely would have been.

And then Connor returned to consciousness, and started coughing.

Everything ached. A lesser man would have been broken from a fall like that. But he managed to get away with wounds, sprains, and a concussion that would heal a hell of a lot faster than it should. Connor wasn’t one to be grateful for his own durability – he just assumed that it would keep him safe and let that arrogance flair up where it pleased – but today was a different day. Today, he was only suffering heavy burns, and aches from the fall, when he should have been dead. He should have bathed in lava and his luck should have run out.

He forced his dizzy head up past the strange fabric that covered him to look up the titan above.

It was walking away.

The boy’s head fell back against the soft ground as he sighed in relief. The titan must have thought it had already gotten him. No way the destroyer would have survived a gout of fire from the center of the Earth. Even if he’d avoided that, the magma below would have done him in.

He stared at the blue sky, and felt his throat tighten. It didn’t. He was still alive. Sitting on a surprisingly soft patch of ground that should have been as hard as obsidian, and still cooling from the liquid it had once been. Not only was he alive, but he was comfortable…

And then the last few moments before they’d fallen caught up to him, in painful flashes. He sat up, and knocked right into a massive set of leathery wings.

Shift was feeling not so hot. The lava beneath her was quite nice. The broken bones? Not so much. In fact, she wasn’t sure what part of her _wasn’t_ broken at that moment in time. She felt like a porcelain doll that had fallen off the top shelf of some grandma’s bookcase. And then her pet poodle pissed on it. And then it was thrown in a trash compactor. She groaned a low, painful noise as her wings slowly unfolded from their firm cocoon around Connor and pancaked flat on the rough wasteland. Her tail just kind of unfurled itself from his legs and lay there too, twitching. Like the rest of her. Twitching. Knitting herself slowly back together. And feeling like death the whole time.

“Let’s never do that again,” She grunted quietly. “That was a lot, even for me.” He froze at the voice and turned swiftly around to face the demon that lay on the ground as flat as a pancake. She’d appeared in just as bad a shape as him, but the flames licking up her wounds and sealing her bones in the proper shape were giving her a real head start.

The massive wings, horns and tail threw him. “You saved me,” he finally said, after a long pause of blankness. His brain was still having a time trying to process what had happened. Minutes ago he’d been prepared to die. Now his head was in perpetual pain, and the vice that was his skull made him want to tear it open himself.

“You’re acting like you’re surprised.” The fire beneath her burned pleasantly hot; she wasn’t in any hurry to leave her spot, even if the kid decided now was as good a time as any to try and kill her. “You okay?” she strained. Her broken neck was still in the process of piecing itself together.

“I… I’m fine.” Dizzy, was more like it. Trying to stay sitting upright, and be able to get more than a few words out of his mouth. “What about you?”

“I’ll be okay,” she grunted. “Give me a few minutes and it’ll be like that never happened. I’m kind of used to this. The pain, that is. This is bad, but uh… Nothing I haven’t experienced before.”

“I thought you were dead,” he murmured. He could remember that snapshot of her against those horns like a lifeless bug stuck hanging on a sticky vine. Just… Nothing. Lifeless. She had been well and truly gone, and he had resigned himself in some way that he would never see her again. And now she was alive. Whining and in pain, but very alive.

“Uh huh.” She rolled her eyes, and let her head fall back and nestle against the edge of a still cooling rock. Crooked, yellowed horns glowed near white in the light of the lava. He stared at them with the blank look of a man suffering a serious concussion, then at the impressive wings that now lay twitching around them. On his perch of stone far enough away from magma to be safe, he analyzed her with all that his poor mind could handle. Even in this state, he was still weighing her strengths and how he could take something like her down. She was mesmerizing. And he knew somewhere in the back of his mind that he should be trying to kill her.

“How did you get those things?” His voice came out as a slur.

“Dying,” she grunted.

“Does that always happen?”

“Yeah.” Her laugh was coarse. “Barely got out of the blood lust in time for it to be of any use. You’re lucky I care…”

“Blood lust?”

Her mouth set in a thin frown. “Let’s get you out of the lava before you start asking me a million questions, okay?” She tenderly sat up, rubbed her poor broken tailbone, then cracked her neck to confirm every bone was back in place. One last glance at the titan far off on the horizon confirmed to her that the two of them were safe. And Connor was in no state to travel, not surrounded by lava, and not with half of him burned down to flesh.

She wrapped her thin arms around his hefty thighs and the small of his back, then lifted him without breaking a sweat. The difficulty, rather, was in his constant squirming struggle to get out.

“Wait - let me go!” Every motion made his head scream, but he couldn’t just let a demon pick him up like some delicate flower. He still had the strength left in him to fight, he swore. He could take her down if he wanted to.

“Do you want me to drop you in a pit of lava?”

He stopped struggling. “… I don’t like this,” he muttered bitterly.

“We can worry about wanting to kill each other after the danger’s passed. I’ll let you go the second we’re out of here.”

Where exactly _here_ was, was an actual pit of magma and lava. The force of the fall had made a small crater below the fire demon. Thin rivulets of fiery hot magma flowed into a pool at the bottom from the surrounding swamp of death and heat, and it was only her body that had kept Connor from being fried to a crisp. Not a big deal for a fire demon to make her way out of, but there were quite a few skeletons dotting the landscape. Gremlins that had journeyed just a little too close in search of whatever it was they were looking for.

When it was clear that Connor wasn’t going to fight her on this, she started to walk along the land of fire. She didn’t stop. Not for anything. More than a mile, she walked with the broken and nauseated boy in her arms, until the first row of trees that weren’t actively on fire brushed past her shoulder, and the ground beneath her feet no longer crackled with newly made stone. The ground was ashen and the wood was blackened from old fire, but they were safe here.

She let him go as gently as she could, then fell in a heap of exhaustion. With some difficulty, he turned to a crouch beside her and watched her for any sign of betrayal.

“If you’re going to try killing me again,” she muttered into the dirt. “Please get it out of your system now.”

“What? No!” He turned away in guilt, because that was exactly what he was thinking of doing. But right now, she was… Pitiful. As impressive as those wings were, she couldn’t move. And neither could he. The pain from the burns would soon be winning out over the adrenaline pumping through his veins. He wasn’t looking forward to feeling his fingers again.

But something else was whirling through his mind. He grit his teeth, and turned back to her. “What happened back there?” he demanded.

“God, Connor,” she sighed. “Do you ever turn it off?” Slowly, she picked herself up from the dirt. Her arms shook with effort. The lack of energy left within her was surprising. Alarming. Quor’toth had that affect of pushing her to her limits, but this was more than she dared think.

Hefting herself up into a sitting position, her wings relaxed behind her, and her whole body slouched in front until her head was dipped to her chest. She watched with hooded eyes as the distant fire titan wrecked the landscape. She could barely hear it now. Miles and miles away, and of no threat to either of them. Now it was just a soothing constant she could watch instead of focus on the reality of what had just happened. “I transformed. It’s what I do.”

“No. The other thing. You…” He touched his own lips. She gave him a small, tired smile. Her eyes scrunched closed, and she swallowed the last of those bittersweet emotions. Then she leaned in closer and pressed her lips to his own. He went still as a statue.

“That.” Her fingers slipped down from the hold she’d had on his jaw, first to his chest, then down to her own lap. She pulled away to sit beside him, and nearly fell over in the process. “Right?”

“What is that?”

She grimaced. “A kiss.”

“Well what’s it supposed to mean?”

“I told you, didn’t I? That I love you. Before.” Her gaze once again returned to the devastation ahead of them, and the memories of his near death haunted her. She could still see that look of pure terror in his eyes, just before she caught him. She could remember how he shivered.

“That’s not something you should lie about.”

“Then it’s a good thing that I’m not lying.” He was alarmed at the venom in her voice. “You could have died back there. You would have – if I wasn’t there – if – if I had even wasted a second of time – you would have been dead! Do you realize that? Do you get that? Do you even realize how scared I was?”

He stared at her. Her eyes were smoking, little white puffs trailing from the tear ducts.

“If you died, I’ve never forgive myself! It would be my fault! All of this would be my fault! I ruined everything! All this time – all this effort, finding you – and my whole existence would have only served to kill you when you weren’t even supposed to die!”

“I’m sorry.”

She clutched at the remnants of his hide shirt and halfheartedly shook the boy that seemed more stoned by the minute. “Don’t you fucking apologize, dumbass! Just give a shit about yourself! Don’t do something like that again! I _told_ you it was a suicide mission! Why the fuck would you think you could do that? Even _you_ are smarter than that! Just…” She sighed, and hung her head, dropping it against his chest. “I’m so fucking tired, Connor. Of… Of everything.”

Still in shock, and with a brain that seemed to be less functional by the minute, he did what he thought was the best course of action in that moment. Cautiously, he raised his hands up, and tentatively patted her head.

“Uh. There. There.”

His hand caught her horn. A shudder ripped through her, and he immediately pulled away as though she had struck him, his eyes wide and full of dulled confusion.

“What? What did I do wrong?”

She was as red as he’d ever seen her.

“This is so unfair,” she whimpered. “So fucking unfair. Fuckin' – Fuck you.” She wrapped her arms tightly around his broken form, her face buried against his neck.

“What did I do…?” He knew what a hug was, at least. That was something he could understand. He held her back.

“Nothing,” she sighed. “Forget it. Forget all of this. Let’s just… Stay like this.” She gripped him tighter. Tiny, faint sobs intermittently echoed between soft breaths. “Just for a little while. Okay?”

“I’m confused,” he eventually said, helpless to offer anything to the girl.

“Oh don’t you fuckin worry. It’ll never get less confusing. No matter the timeline.” His heartbeat was strong. Steady. He was alive. And he was holding her. And she could pretend, just for a second, that she was home. And he was safe. And she was somewhere where he loved her too.

Somehow, that only hurt worse.

“I don’t understand you,” he said softly. “But maybe you’re not… Lying all the time.” She was crying on him. Tears were such a taboo subject, and yet here she was smoking her eyes into oblivion. He didn’t know how to feel, but he couldn’t ignore her emotions or the earnest truth behind them.

“Thanks.”

“You’re a demon.”

“I guess the horns don’t help.”

“Not really.” He paused. The titan was little more than a shadow over the horizon now. “But you saved me. I don’t know why you’d do that.”

“I will beat you over the head with loving words if I have to.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense.” He pushed her away from arm’s length and watched as she tried to crawl her way back into the crook of his neck. “You’re a demon. You’re what I hunt. You’re a killer.”

“Good, evil.” She sighed. “I don’t care. I just care about you. Can you understand that? Is that simple enough?”

“But – why?”

“Because I do.”

He rubbed his scalp, then winced at the residual ache that wouldn’t leave him alone. Dizziness and nausea rippled through him. Shift raised an eyebrow, then moved closer against his protest and looked into his eyes.

“Concussion. That explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“Why you aren’t kicking my ass right now.”

“Well –“ He glared halfheartedly at her. “Maybe I should. You stole my chance at the kill.”

“Connor. Look at me. Do you really think you could have done it?”

“Of course I could!” Ow. Yelling made his head pound.

“Okay, okay, stop being so loud, Jesus. You need to rest. And to stop screaming at the top of your lungs.” Her wings folded awkwardly behind her back and her tail twitched into an elegant curve around the two of them. Her energy was slowly returning from that exertion, but she’d need a chance to recover too. And blood.

He couldn’t get over them. He’d been ogling those extremities this whole time, but the additions were still so intriguing to his addled mind. The horns were a wickedly sharp off-white. Her teeth seemed even larger and more pointed than normal when she opened them. And her hands had become little more than claws. He had so many questions. So many prospects for challenges. As he perked from his near-death experience, all the quandaries in the back of his mind bubbled to the surface and threatened to spill over. He should have been resting. But he couldn’t help himself.

“Why couldn’t you fly with those wings?”

“I don’t have hollow bones, first of all. Second, these aren’t for flight. Defensive purposes only. Not to mention heat proof. Like the rest of me.” She grimaced. “You were lucky you fought something made of fire.”

“And what does the tail do?”

“Look cool.” She touched it and he did, too. It was leathery, just like the wings. “I don’t have much control over it. It mostly does what it wants.” She quirked a wry smile at him. “Why are you asking so many questions _now?_ With a head injury like that, I’m not even sure you’re going to remember any of this.

He shrugged. “Because I want to know. And the horns? What do they do? How sharp are they? Are they good for gouging? Do they break easily?” He reached out to touch them and her whole body swung out of the way to keep him from laying a hand on them. She put a good foot and a half between them.

“THEY ARE NOT FOR TOUCHING.”

“Why not? What’s wrong with them?” He tried to stumble even closer, but he was too dizzy to think straight. “You reacted to them before. Do they hurt?”

“They’re sensitive.” She stumbled back slightly to give a good foot of space between them. Her claws dug into the spoil as she stayed leaned forward with her shoulders hunched, watching him.

“How? Are they a weakness?”

She let out a breath. “They… Yeah. A weakness.”

“But they’re just there in the forefront. They’d be so easy to grab. Why would this form put something like that right in the way?” Her face flushed to a dark red.

“Do not do that. They don’t hurt – but – just don’t do it.”

“Why?”

“Sensitive doesn’t always mean painful,” she said carefully. That idiot’s concussion must have been hitting by now, right? He must have been tired, must want to sleep and _forget they were ever having this godawful conversation._

“Then what can mean? How?” Frustration seeped into his words. She kept hiding things from him, only half explaining things. No matter the pounding in his head, he couldn’t deny how annoying it was that she had all the cards and only said enough to make him more confused.

Speaking for her was like pulling teeth. “Like I won’t be able to focus because it feels too good.”

“Good?”

“Pleasurable – Connor don’t make me say shit like this when you’re looking at me with such a straight face!” She hid behind her ragged mess of hair and curled away from him in a small ball. “This isn’t something I should be talking to you about. This – this isn’t a conversation that _I_ should be having. Even Holtz would be better than this…”

“Fine then,” he huffed and crossed his mutilated and burned arms. “If you won’t answer that, then tell me more about kissing.”

She stared at him sheer horror through her hair. “What? – seriously? That’s where you’re going now?”

He glowered at her, as well as he could with that creeping migraine. “I was wondering about it. If you’re going to do it, then don’t I deserve to know what it really means? You keep saying it has to do with love, like I’d understand. But I don’t. You’re not making any sense.” 

“I’m not talking about this.”

His eyes narrowed.

She sighed. “You’re not in any state to hear about this. You look like you’ve just eaten an entire lemon tree, you know that?”

Connor frowned, not to be dissuaded.

Fine, then. If she was going to do this, then might as well do it when he wasn’t in a state to remember half of it when he woke up again. Besides, she was just informing, right? This was just information he’d learn eventually, anyways. She’d keep herself out of it.

“When two people like each other a lot, they do things like that,” she tried to explain. “Kissing, and stuff. And when they love each other.”

“Like, my dad? Or those moths? Or my favorite knife?”

“No. Like, you want to – to do things with them.”

“What kind of things? I want to ride the moths – and I like training with my dad.”

This conversation was taking a nosedive so, so quickly. She stared at this ridiculously durable kid. He _had_ to be tired. Covered in wounds, barely running on adrenaline, surely going into a shock – and yet he was talking like it was nothing. And here she was, already healed, and struggling to remember how sentences even worked. “If… If you want to kiss someone, then that’s someone you might want to be in a relationship with. It’s,” she bit her lip, “being together, closer than normal. Wanting to touch them all the time, think about them all the time. Wanting to give them things. Wanting to have a family together, maybe, far far off in the future. You trust them. You rely on them. At the end of the day, you want to end up in the same bed as them and know that they’re safe.”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “That’s how you want me.”

She went quiet.

“Yeah,” she finally cracked.

“Why?”

“I told you why.”

“The future. A future that I don’t even understand. And why would I even believe you?”

She sighed begrudgingly. “Then don’t. It’s too complicated anyways.” And that ended that. Connor frowned, and didn’t continue to attack that conversation she’d closed so immediately. He didn’t have the mental ability to go after it.

Besides, he was too busy learned about the intricacies of relationships. “And what does kissing even do?” He pushed.

“It’s just a show of affection,” she dismissed. “Connor you should really be resting, even sleep at this point wouldn’t be a bad idea-“

“Like a hug,” he said, trying to connect the dots together.

“But it’s a lot more intimate. Closer. And only with people you like in that specific way. Like – Connor. Please. I don’t know why we’re still talking about this, but this isn’t the time or the place.”

“What other things do you do with someone like that?” He moved closer in curiosity. It was difficult. A familiar sense of exhaustion was growing over him. His body wanted to rest and it protested whenever he wrinkled his forehead in thought, let alone moved closer to her. But he had too many questions to ask. And she was blushing again. And utterly frazzled at his stubbornness.

“Connor, please.”

“My name is Steven.”

“Your name could be Vin Diesel and I wouldn’t be entertaining this stupid fucking conversation.”

“What other things do you do, Shift?” His voice grew quieter, deeper, like it had once before. When he had her pinned against that cliff. Her face erupted in a deep flush. How could he know so little, and yet pull at every string she had so perfectly? She’d never known what an idiot savant had meant before him.

“I… I shouldn’t be talking about this,” she insisted, more to herself now than to him. “You have to know something on your own by now. Holtz has to have told you about something. He had a wife and kid. This _can’t_ be the first time you’ve heard about the Talk. Not here – not now!”

His father talked about them, but that was only when it was in a zealous fervor. Those calls to justice were invigorating and helped him see sense again, but he never really elaborated. Details like that weren’t important to the mission. And none of them had anything to do with the world outside Quor’toth.

“He never told me anything,” the kid relented. His shoulders slouched, and even in his wrecked state he could still feel the prickles of betrayal that had never totally gone away the day he’d got his father in a lie or several. He didn’t want to think about what they meant right now, but he couldn’t ignore that those wounds were there. “He never… Thought it was important.”

Shift was seething in embarrassment and fear. She’d promised herself she’d never be the one to have this conversation. She’d promised herself she’d never go down this stupid, stupid road. And now, here she was, faced with Connor giving her those sweet, horribly sad puppy-dog eyes, and she was helpless to say no to them. Because he was right. Holtz had given him nothing. And he would continue to be helpless here until he found his way back to Los Angeles. There, he’d be taken advantage of left right and center by every girl around him, including his own mother figure. And no one would ever tell him anything. No one would ever just sit down and give him the chance to ask the questions he needed answers to. They’d continue to fill his head with lies meant to further their own schemes. He was just a pawn. That’s the only way that anyone ever saw him. A prize. Even his own father…

Was she really going to be another one of those that just dismissed his questions as ones that someone would tell him later down the line? Was she really willing to sacrifice her own personal morals to give Connor what he wanted here and now? What line was she really crossing here? And would he even remember any of it? He looked like a sick dog in front of her, faintly green with nausea and swaying from side to side with the breeze. What would it hurt? What would it help? She couldn’t keep dithering.

She swallowed.

“Do you know what masturbation is?” She muttered, her voice so soft that she thought, hopefully, maybe he hadn’t heard.

“Is that some kind of fighting tactic?”

This was going to hurt worse than she thought. “It’s when you touch yourself. No –“ She stopped him when he reflexively went to grab his own arm. “No – like… The thing between your legs. And there’s a, ya know, a feeling.”

She couldn’t keep this up. She couldn’t even look him in the eye. It was too much. “That’s the feeling you want to have with someone you care about.”

Connor had accidentally stumbled upon something like this before, sometimes in the middle of the night when he woke up and felt off. Restless. But. Doing touching himself like that made his senses dull, and that was a death sentence in Quor’toth. He’d never entertained it.

“I felt something before, but there’s more to it?”

“Do it long enough and you get this big wave of good feelings. Takes a while, takes what you like, takes thinking about things you like, but it happens.”

“That sounds like magic.”

She swallowed. “Yeah, I… I guess.”

“But what does it do?”

She went quiet again. He fell forward, his head pounding and his stomach churning, and tried to look her in the eye. They were inches apart. “What does it have to do with this Talk?” He asked again. He watched her flush, and felt his cheeks heat a little too, just out of reaction to her.

Her breath caught in her throat. It took a second for her to actually gain the ability to speak.

“When you like that person you want to kiss so much, you do that kind of thing together. You got your… thing, and girls have something else. Most of the time, anyways. It’s like a puzzle piece, kind of. Put ‘em together, move around a bit, and you get that feeling together. You know that feeling? That weakness? When you do that with someone you care about, and it gets to the end and there’s that explosion of feeling –“

“Explosion?”

“METAPHORICAL explosion. And they’re there for you, then you feel even more trust and loyalty and happiness toward them. That’s how relationships can work. It’s just a culmination of trust, and care, and loyalty. Honesty too. It’s called sex.” She bit her lip, not looking him in the eye. She was already throwing so many new things at him, might as well just dump the mother-lode and leave him to flounder. Then she wouldn’t have to have this terrible, terrible conversation ever again. “That’s also how the whole having kids thing happens.”

“With sex?” His eyes went wide.

“Yeah. Guy has a puzzle piece, girl has a puzzle piece, put ‘em together, and the girl suddenly has a kid in her. Nine months later, boom, baby.”

He was struggling to wrap his head around this sudden wash of information. “The baby explodes…”

“No wait, that came out wrong -” 

“The…” His voice was growing slower, jilted. “Baby came out wrong?”

She groaned.

“It seems like there’s a lot of… Exploding… Going on...” He rubbed his head as the waves of pain grew in intensity and told him, emphatically, that he needed to rest. But, being Connor, he was never one to listen to his own body. He was fighting it every step of the way. He didn’t want to sleep. If he slept, then he was afraid he might forget. And that he’d stop talking to her. Stop learning valuable things that Holtz had never taught him.

“For lack of a better term. Birth. The baby is birthed. From the woman. Usually.”

“When does that _not_ happen?”

“When you’re you.”

He stared at her through pain-filled, half-lidded eyes.

“Never mind.”

He looked at her and tried to focus on how to probe further on what was so clearly a dismissal. He still had so many questions to ask. But all of them were starting to get fuzzy. And so was the world. As he spoke, his words grew more slurred than before. Sleep pulled at him.

So… So this sex thing… You, with me-”

“No.” She interrupted. The conversation may have gotten completely away from her, but she would draw the line here. No further. Not with him, not when he knew nothing, not when it was _her_ telling him things he shouldn’t learn from her, and she was – was – “Let’s not talk about me. Let’s get you resting, until you heal from that concussion. You look way too green and pale right now. Your pupils are dilated.”

“But I have more questions!” _Ow._ Okay, now yelling really was starting to hurt.

She held up her hands in defense. “And I’ll be here to answer them, when you’re feeling up to it. But you shouldn’t push yourself. Look at you, joker, you’re already burned to a crisp, fighting between throwing up and passing out. You really think now is the time to have big mind-bending conversations?”

“Stop telling me what to do… I’m the destroyer, something like this isn’t going to kill me. I don’t need you coddling me.” But he was getting closer and closer to closing his eyes. His breathing was slow. He probably hadn’t even noticed from the shock, but he was in bad shape. Real bad. In some places the skin had burned down to muscle and flesh. His fingers were charcoal. He needed time to heal. And she needed time to recover from what she’d told him, and hope he’d never remember.

“I’m not coddling,” she murmured to him. She helped him down against the ground, with the head support of a tree turned to charcoal. “I’ll keep watch.”

“Why should I trust you?” He murmured through his fatigue.

“… I don’t know,” she said quietly. "But I have a feeling you're not going to anyways, when you wake up."

He said something that could have been reluctant agreement, or could have been a soft note of disagreement, but whatever it was, he was knocked out by the time his head hit ground.

Shift settled in beside him. At first, she was sitting there, watching him. But then she caved. She was bad. She curled up against that little crook he’d made with his arms, pressed her head to his chest, and listened to the sound of his heartbeat. She watched the thin glow on the horizon that was the titan, kept an ear out for the sound of the bugs and monsters she knew would be coming for him soon enough, and prepared herself for the moment she’d need to tear herself away. But for this one tiny moment, she savored being in his arms. It was safe there.

So, crucify her. She was only a demon.


	11. A Game of Chess

Connor had been certain was all a dream. It had certainly felt like one. He would never have allowed a demon to save him, carry him – all of that had to be a part of his obsession he had been desperately trying to quench, leaking into his subconscious. He would never have spoken to a demon that pretended to be a killer and always filled his head with lies. And he would never have fought a titan. That would have been insane, even for him. Sure, he’d always thought about it, considered it, but that was always a what if scenario. And Holtz wouldn’t have forced him into that situation, right? His father knew what Connor was capable of. And he wasn’t capable of, well, _that._

He stared up at the sky and tried to will this into existence. It wasn’t working very well when his dream still hadn’t ended. He still hurt all over. His head still faintly throbbed. And the sun was shining down on him showing that is was mid-morning, and he had missed a full day.

And she was still there. She’d been there for hours. In his most vulnerable state, she’d protected him. 

She was sleeping, quietly. Curled up in his arms, like a little ragged animal that was more hair than person. There were no wings or horns or tail, not like in his dream. Instead there were small piles of ash where they’d been. She was warm. Alive. He’d heard stories of vampires over and over again from his father, how they were nothing but dead bodies that could move, a monstrosity that spat in the Lord’s face and claimed to be better than his creation. But she wasn’t like that. She was… Real. If she had a beating heart in the same place as his own, then how demon was she, truly? How many ways could he justify not having moved away from her just yet? 

He pushed her out of the way, and she woke up in an instant.

“Connor?” She groaned, not even seeming to notice as he put more space between them, uncertainty building in his heart. She stretched like a cat, then sat up and looked him over. Still not great, but he’d healed remarkably in his sleep. He’d be fine in another day or two.

“My name is Steven,” he muttered, his eyes still glued to her. She’d stayed. She was still there. She hadn’t run away, nor hurt him. It didn’t make any sense. She was a liar. She played with his head. Was this just another game? But – but that wouldn’t make sense either.

Once again, Connor found himself frustrated with his own mind.

“Whatever,” she sighed. “How are you feeling?”

“You didn’t kill me.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? That’s what you glean from this? Your fingers were burned down to nubs. Nubs, joker. Like, I could see the bone. How are they now? Gimme ‘em, let’s have a look-”

“Steven!” The ragged, wispy voice was unmistakable. The both of them froze the moment they heard it. Holtz’s face came into a view a moment later, picking between rock and rubble and using a walking stick to navigate his way there. What appeared to be sincere worry twisted his expression in ways that made Shift sick to her stomach. His voice, filled with compassion, fear, was the very picture of manipulation to her. “I was so worried, son, after that monster, I thought for certain I’d lost you-“ He jumped down to their level, and at that moment, finally noticed the demon beside him.

All care went out the window. “What are you doing with the shebeast, Steven,” he muttered with venom dotting every word.

“She saved me,” his son answered. He got up unsteadily on still-healing feet. Behind him, Shift hopped up immediately and dusted herself off of the leftover ash still clinging to her. Red eyes watched Holtz like a hawk. The other shoe was going to drop soon, she could feel it.

“Yeah,” she echoed smugly behind him. “I saved him. From the titan you set him against. Remind me again, what kind of fucking parent pulls that shit? Not a very mentally sound one, I’d fuckin’ say. But you’re not going to talk about that, are you? How the fuck you gonna spin this one, Holtz?”

“Get away from her, Steven,” the man hissed. “I’m not sure what lies she’s told you, but you and I both know that she isn’t to be trusted. She’s a demon.”

Connor’s eyes grazed the girl behind him, then turned to his dad. He swallowed. He promised himself he wouldn't let this slide. Even if she was a liar, that didn’t change what she’d done for him. His father couldn’t pretend it didn’t happen. “But she saved me. She protected me. And she’s still here. If there was something she was guilty of, wouldn’t she have run away? Wouldn’t she have tried to hurt me? Or just leave me here, to die?” 

“It’s all a part of her plan to try to manipulate you, Steven,” the man insisted. “You must see that. She must need you in the long run, to use you. Abuse you, gain your trust only to squash it when it matters.” He raised an arm up to gesture to the monster behind him. She had her teeth bared like a dog straining on its leash. “Why else would a demon do anything? You should know better than anyone Steven. After all I’ve taught you, you question me?”

Exasperation clawed up until Connor’s voice cracked and squeaked. “I don’t know!”

“Manipulate – Holtz, what the fuck kind of hypocritical bullshit are you spilling?” Shift snarled. “The world isn’t black and white and my being a demon is meaningless next to a monster that stole a baby from his crib. You know that as well as anyone, Holtz. You can’t swallow your own lies.”

“Steven.” The elder man had eyes only for his precious son, his eyes never straying to the hissing cat behind him. “Don’t listen to her. Remember your goal, your sense of justice. She can’t be trusted, no demon can. You could have bested that titan and she ruined that for you, did she not? Just like she’s gotten in the way of the very destiny that you know you are to fulfill.” Holtz tilted his chin up in confident defiance. “She’s told you not to kill Angel, hasn’t she?”

  
Connor swallowed.

He chuckled, and shook his head. “Of course she has. Because she is out to ruin you. Her mouth is filled with lies. Whether it’s the millions of lives she’s claimed to have sharpened her claws on, or that Angel isn’t a threat. You and I know he is. God delivered me to you, and away from that monster.”

“Oh fuck off – I’m not here to do anything but protect Connor, you dipshit!” Shift snarled. “That is my _only_ mission here. He was about to fall to his certain death – a fuckin’ unavoidable one, I might add – so I made sure he was safe. Unlike you, who sent him there in the first place. Who would be the deliverer of your twisted justice, then, Holtz? You? You look like a naked mole rat curled up and died three years ago. You’re too old for your own hatred. Look at where it’s taken you.”

“Listen to her talk,” he hissed over her. “She’s continuing to use you to, to force you against the path you are meant to talk. All these years, and she had never stopped in her attempts to peel you away from me. Whether it was her scent, which I swore you away from, or with her words, toxic, and poisonous. You know she’s a liar.” He held out a hand to his Steven, and his voice softened, just enough. “Come here, son. You know I would never risk you. She was the one that caused your failure. This would have been no different if not for her.”

Connor walked a few tentative, robotic steps toward the man he so desperately wanted to please, but stopped before he could close the gap. Holtz’s hand shut closed in a fist, his mouth twitching.

“All she said was that she was trying to protect me.” Connor’s chin tilted up to look his old man in the eye, swallowing as he did to try and ignore that nervousness growing in his chest. “And she did.” The truth stared him in the face. No matter what Holtz said, no matter how saccharine his words might be, the hunter couldn’t rewrite fact, and action stuck in his son’s mind more than any speech. “She was there when I woke up. She didn’t do anything to me. She didn’t try to lie.”

“She’ll say and do anything in order to get you to join her side, that’s what demons do, Steven.” Holtz hissed the words in a desperate kind of drone, his eyes flitting between the son he was certain he still had and the creature that futilely believed she could break them apart. “You have lived long enough in this wretched world to know that. Both of us have. Look at her.” Connor did. “See those eyes. Slitted, like some kind of animal. A mangy, evil creature. Those claws. And those teeth – those are meant to kill, son. Not to protect. She is a monster, like any you have faced before.”

“That’s racist,” she scoffed.

“She’s not human,” he continued without missing a beat. “She’s the same breed as the things that have been trying to kill you from the moment we both entered the rift. She’s the reason we had to enter it in the first place. The same thing as Angel, an abomination in the face of the Lord. And what about her claim of killing millions? Do you remember that?”

Connor could feel the pounding growing in his skull again, but he couldn’t tell where it came from anymore. The arguments were getting all jumbled together. She was just as bad as Angel, but she wasn’t worth fighting, because Angel was the more important one? And she killed millions, but she was lying to manipulate him, but she was actually telling the truth because she was evil and terrible and a demon just like Angel? What was his father trying to say? What was Connor supposed to listen to? What story was he supposed to follow in order to make sense of the world again? How did he swallow the increasingly larger pill? “But you said she could have been lying!”

“God, yes I don’t deny that, but she could have been telling the truth. And if that’s the case, then she is far more dangerous. A monster even worse than Angel. Not something you should trust. Something you should be keeping a far, far distance from. Something we should leave in this dimension to rot.” His voice turned to venom. “And not lying with, son. Not a demon.”

“I couldn’t move!” Connor argued. “I was helpless, I needed to heal-“

“And you chose to trust a monster no better than that titan you could have beaten if not for her? A demon that could be a heartless killer? That _claims_ to be one?”

“She – she didn’t keep me from defeating that titan,” Connor tried to argue, unsure in his own words with questions still pulling at his mind in every direction. “She saved my life.”

But the elder hunter had already moved on to the demon that glared at him with murder plain in her eyes. His gaze was cold, and filled with that confidence that only the most experienced humans got when they’d seen more than their fair share of devastation. “Tell the truth, shebeast,” he commanded. “And stop lying to my son. End this façade of care you have for him once and for all. Stop ruining his mind with lies, so I can finally take back my boy from your games.”

Connor fixed her with an uncharacteristically vulnerable, near hopeful look. Soft, and confused, looking for a light in the cult-like fog he’d lived in all his life. He wanted her to say she was just a small, insignificant little liar. If it was a lie, then everything still made sense. Holtz was still right, yet Connor could still trust her. Then he could pretend she wasn’t the monster she was, because she wasn’t a danger. Shift’s heart ached, because she knew exactly what was coming. This just wasn’t fair. Holtz had planned for everything.

“Did you kill people, Shift?” The kid asked softly.

“I’ve never lied to you, Connor. I did.”

The Destroyer paused, as if he hadn’t heard correctly, then took several steps away from them – both of them. His hand flew to his waist for a dagger, but it wasn’t there. None of his weapons were. He’d lost them all in the battle with the titan. But his fists were still perfectly good.

“Then – then you’re worse than Angel,” he spat. He kept swallowing, but the lump in his throat wasn’t going away. “You… You weren’t lying, when you told me. You really are a monster. And I trusted you. I _trusted_ you.” He’d felt safe. He’d felt like, just for a split second, the world wasn’t the constant fight that Holtz had brought him up to charge into.

She’d have to be perfect here, to get him back. And she wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t Holtz. She didn’t play mind games. Didn’t even know how they worked. All she could do was tell him the truth. He was owed that much.

Shift wasn’t usually afraid. That’s not the kind of person she was. But, this stupid kid, this man, he’d been the source of the most fear she’d felt in far too long.

“I’ve been alive for a very, very long time, Connor,” she muttered, then spoke louder as she looked him in the eye. “I was built to be a soldier. I followed instinct that had been written in me, because that was all I knew. People were bugs, food, I killed indiscriminately…” She struggled to think of a way to explain it in a way he’d understand. She couldn’t stand the rage on his face. “But then I found my moth, joker.” She took a step toward him, and he took one back. She stopped there, desperately clutching at her own fingers. “And I realized what it meant. I realized what people could be worth. I realized what I’d done. I realized that the world is a series of prey and predators, but that doesn’t mean we have the right to break families apart in the hunt. No one does.”

She turned to Holtz and glared at him. “But you wanna know what I never fucking did, not once? I never killed a child. No matter how many times I was beaten by my own creator. I couldn’t do it. Can you say the same, Holtz? Can you say that you didn’t bring a child into your bullshit and killed him of any normal future he could have had?”

“She just admitted it to you, boy,” Holtz barked out, already subtly moving toward his pale and unmoving son. “Look at her. Wearing her victims on her chest like a badge of honor and thinking that some kind of _understanding_ of what she was makes anything better. It doesn’t bring back the millions, boy. She’s still a beast. She’s always been a beast. She’s in line with Angel, looking to tear us apart at every opportunity. Shebeast, tell me, you feed off of humanity just as any other demon. How can you claim to know anything about what it means to be human?”

“I never said I was human!” She snarled. “I know exactly what I am, I deal with it and move on! Why can’t you? Why can’t you move on from your bullshit, Holtz? Why do you have to drag people into it? Do you understand what Connor even is? He’s not a toy for you to play mind games with! You’re dealing with a real person and every time you break him down just a little further you push him closer towards his bad ending. Do you even care that you’re signing his damnation? Is everything a sacrificial lamb to you?”

“What I have is justice. What you have is manipulation, because that is all demons are. Manipulation, and devastation. You can hide your disguise behind enough humanoid parts to blend into the crowd. But we know what camouflage really is. It’s an attempt to hunt. That’s all you are.” His eyes were the perfect image of a still lake at midnight. “You’re a vampire with a fresh coat of paint.”

Shift gagged. “I can not believe you just compared me to a glorified zombie. You know what, fuck you, man.” 

“Just shut up!” Connor roared. The tree he punched cracked under his strength, and seconds later in the otherwise silent world, it fell down and knocked against another. They continued like a pack of dominoes, until the last singed log landed with a heavy bump, and the only thing that moved were the ash motes floating in the harsh sunlight. Not even Holtz spoke.

Connor turned on his father with hunched shoulders and panting breaths. “Just tell me the truth,” he begged. “I don’t want to play any games anymore. I just want to understand.” He turned to Shift. “Please.”

Her hands clenched and unclenched. “I did. You, safe. That’s it, Connor. From the beginning.”

“She’s lying.” Holtz shook his head, the old, grizzled hunter remaining as resolute as a statue. “She’s a demon, Steven. You need to trust your instincts. Feel the truth in your gut. I’ve taught you since you were a babe, I _cared_ for you since before you knew the horrid truth of the world. You know what to look for. See that she’s hiding something from you. She’s already tried to pretend that killing millions is worthy of forgiveness. She’s worth killing, not worth listening to.”

“And you told me to ignore her. You told me that she was nothing.”

“I wanted to prepare you–“

“You can’t pretend that makes sense!” Connor snarled.

“If you’d just listen to me son, and stop raising your voice to me, you’d understand _why_ ,” Holtz insisted.

Connor shook his head violently. “Every time you talk, I just get more confused. Both of you.”

“Then don’t listen to me!” Shift exclaimed. “Just focus on your stupid warden and realize that what he’s saying is fucking stupid! You’re right, it doesn’t make sense.”

“Shebeast,” Holtz hissed. “The last thing we need right now are more of your manipulations.”

“Oh, more of _my_ manipulations? You’re one that’s been hard for vampire justice to the point of _stealing his own fucking child._ ”

It was too much. All of it. He needed to break something, but not even that seemed to calm the waters. Connor’s mind was breaking. He needed to leave. As quickly as he possibly could. And then find a way to break the world in two.

“Steven!” Holtz shouted after the boy that took off in the other direction. He took a few unsteady steps forward, but there was no catching that rapidly disappearing figure still slightly charred from yesterday. The man desperately tried to call after him in the stark wood. “Steven, understand what she’s capable of! She’s trying to take everything from you, can’t you see?”

But his Steven had already disappeared in the vague direction of what would eventually turn into the swamps. Holtz stood there for a moment, his eyes on the tiny pinprick that had been his boy, and let his hands knot themselves into fists.

“He’s done.” The fire demon shoved her hands in her pockets. Her throat tightened. “He’s gone, man. Give it up. We both fucked it.”

“This is your fault,” Holtz turned on her. “You’ve ruined him with lies. All of your nefarious plans have been nothing but a thorn in my side for far too long.”

Her eyes filled with pity for the stupid, old man that grasped at straws. “No, Holtz. This one’s on you. You’re the one set him up to get knocked down. Still a stupid fucking plan, if you ask me. To get me killed? Did you really think that was going to work on a _fire_ demon? You’ve lost your edge if that was your big plan.” She strode over to him nonchalantly, the casual lilt to her step utterly infuriating to him. He could try to kill her right here and now. She was right in front of him. His fingers glided over the pommel of the dagger hidden in his skins.

She peered up at him with her hands in her pockets and a twisted smile on her face. “Let me let you on a lil’ secret here between you and me. I’m the thing you should be afraid of. The thing that goes bump in the night. Not Angel. Your stupid fucking crusade? It’s pitiful. The end of the world? I’ve been there, seen it, caused it, saved it, the whole nine yards. That titan you sent me out to get killed by? It’s nothing.” She shook her head in exasperation. “God’s sake, kid, even my creator is stronger than that, and I already beat her in a wrestling match.” Her mouth twitched up in a wry smirk. Holtz’s eyes, like most humans did, flickered to the uncannily sharp teeth that flashed before his eyes. “So, what does that say about me, d’you think?”

“I should have thrown you back out of that rip the moment you entered.” His voice was cold. The eyes that looked down on her held no trace of fear, and neither did his words. The blood pumping through his veins remained slow and steady.

She faltered, and turned away. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from him,” she muttered. “He doesn’t need someone who pretends to love him. That’s what got him killed.”

Holtz stood still as a statue as Shift sprinted after his son. The nails of his fist were digging hard enough into his palm to draw blood. His other hand gripped the handle of his dagger firmly. Still shaking. But his mouth was a thin smile.

Steven would come back to him. He had to come back to him. And she would show her true colors soon enough, make him realize that the choice he was making was based on hormones and instinct. But the boy still needed some nudging in the right and true direction.

It was true. Holtz had made a mistake. It wouldn’t happen again. He wouldn’t let it. And now, he needed to prepare.

There was still so much to do. 


	12. Complicated

Rushing through the undergrowth, his feet burned against the corrosive. It was a sheer, self-destructive force that uprooted trees and screamed into the woods, just waiting and hoping it would attract a beast he could beat into a bloody pulp with his own fists.

It didn’t take long for a centipede the size of a house to come after what it perceived as easy prey. Connor’s ears picked up the sounds of scuttling first. A moment later, the enormous chitinous head probed through the moss dangling from the carnivorous trees and the two creatures met face to face. The beast’s mouth watered. After all, this pale thing wounded and obviously screeching in pain would be no match. Just a sting from the end of its tail, and the boy would be paralyzed beneath him, allowing it to swallow him whole.

Taking this thing on with weapons would have been a challenge. But taking it on with his fists? A fool’s errand. Perfect for a durable, broken kid in need of not having to think. All the better to ignore everything else and let the familiar weight and movement focus him. Even when he got hit, even when the air got knocked out of his lungs, even when he got struck trying to get back up again, this is what he craved. This is what he needed. A fight was structure. A fight made sense.

But then the monster was dead, and he was standing on its corpse with no way forward, and no way back. The hole inside him remained, painfully reminding him that there was still a puzzle before him with no pieces that fit. He looked at his own hands covered in the thing’s juices, his breath coming in heavy pants. Then he clenched them tight, and pushed himself off the thing. It wasn’t worth adding to his collection.

“Nice kill.”

The red-eyed demon leaned against a noncorrosive tree with her arms crossed. For a moment, they stood there, apart, meters apart from each other, each waiting for the other to make a move. He caught his breath, clenched his hand into a fist, and saw the monster that had killed millions. The one that had saved his life and claimed to love him. And he turned away.

“Thanks,” he muttered. Her thin smile disappeared.

“Come on, joker,” she said with a quick tilt of her head, stepping from her position by the trees and moving across from him. She parted her legs in a defensive stance and held up her hands. “Let’s have a fight. You and I.”

“Why?”

“Because I know you need it.”

“How would you know anything about me?” He spat as he jumped down from his perch on the creature’s body. “You and my father. You both think you know who I am.”

She shook her head, and smiled at the ground. “I don’t know who you are, joker. I only know who you will be. But if you want a punching bag, here I am. Ready for battle. Do your worst.”

He stopped thinking. The punch hit her stomach and sent her flying through several trees before a rock was strong enough to keep her from moving, the woodchips flying and the trunks cracking and falling to the side moments later. She spat out blood through bloodstained, grinning fangs, wiped it away, and took off running.

This was something the both of them were used to. The quick punches, the attempts to make the other lose their footing, the sheer adrenaline of facing off against each other in a dance of sweat and pain. They lived in it. And this time, she wasn’t running away. Shift went at it with full fervor. No flames, never fire, but every hit was sound, bone cracking, and drove him on. Every kick to his chin only had him coming back to her with the same desperation as before.

Neither had respect for the other in this fight. Neither had time. There were no grace periods, no waiting for the other to get up. Neither gave each other an inch. He swept her legs out from her and tried to pin her down; she bunny kicked her way out of it into his chest. She shoved him against the tree, and a swipe to her head sent her flailing and kept him out of the hold. He took that opportunity to grab her arm and throw her up high into a mess of vines. She landed in the water, and let out a screech as it burned into her skin. Pulling herself back out, her eyes alit in rage, she came back at him and reveled in the heft of a right hook hitting its mark.

Neither of them were fit to fight. Connor wore burned rags that did nothing to hide the deep gouges and burns his body was still healing from. She hadn’t fed in days, and her movements were sluggish and fatigued from that overexertion of her other form. It didn’t matter to either of them. All that mattered was the fight. Dodging each attack was a win. Standing back up after a dizzying hit was a win. And pinning the other down, that was ultimate win. It didn’t matter that his body was growing ever stained with acid burns from the swamp around him, or that the massive beetles flittered around them and tried to pick the two of them off while their guard was down. No animal would get in the way of this fight. No demon other than the one in front of him. She was the only one that mattered. _This_ was all that mattered. Everyone else just got in the way. And he was tired of it.

Connor was pushed to his limits. And he loved it. He didn’t have to think. His focus was there. Here was an opponent just as strong as him, looking for every way to make him slip up. She knew every one of his moves. She knew how he worked. But he was picking up a few techniques of his own. She fought self destructively, uncaring if something of her was torn away in the scuffle. He could break an arm or a leg, and she would take it, if it meant getting out of a hold that might otherwise kill her. And it would heal up moments later, as good as new. It made her impossible to predict. No normal creature would fight around the tactic of letting their body get destroyed in the process. But she didn’t flinch. In the heat of battle, pain was just another emotion to her, one that wasn't important to the fight.

Connor fought with a focus on weakness that would lead to a quick demise. He was focused on the end of the fight, a pin. He was willing to juggle the fight to last longer, but his mind was always calculating. She joked about his intelligence, but she could see where it really lay. Connor was a strategist. His mind was a jumbled mess when he wasn’t in combat, but now? Now his eyes were narrowed, his breath was controlled.

Of course, he was still angry.

He still took out everything he had on her. He still pummeled her into a mess because he couldn’t decide if she was the enemy or not anymore. He tried his damndest to kill her because somewhere, deep in the back of his mind, he was lost and terribly afraid that if he hesitated his world would come crashing down. She could take it. There wasn’t anything she couldn’t heal from. She was the perfect punching bag. And it helped. It helped a lot.

Their fight took them from the marshes to the cliffs, where rocks were thrown, and screams were met with battle cries that could be heard for miles. The moth creatures screeched in anger as relentless onslaught made rocks shake and dislodge, rolling down hundreds of feet to the trees below. The two of them could feel the thrill of being so close. Bloody and bruised, Connor couldn’t hold it back in anymore. He laughed as jab after jab was dodged by the demon that couldn’t help but grin back. There was desperation, there was pain, there was every attempt to throw each other off, and there was warmth.

It ended in a pin. There was nowhere else for Shift to run. There was just Connor, the hard ground beneath her, and the several hundred foot drop below inches away from her head. With her arms pinned above her head and his legs holding down hers, she was done.

Panting, exhausted, and covered in blood, Connor grinned.

“I finally beat you.”

She turned away to hide the flush. The demon had her share of cuts and bruises. “Alright, fine,” she muttered. “You beat me. This time.”

He spat up blood beside her head, then wiped his mouth. “It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.”

“I went easy on you.”

His scowling face turned abruptly to face her smug expression. “I don’t need you pulling punches.”

“Well, you also don’t need to be burned again only hours after that fucking titan,” she scoffed.

“I don’t care.” There was a moment between them where there was a question poised in the air, of what to do after he defeated her. But that question was already answered for him the moment he’d looked into her eyes. And perhaps he hated himself for it.

He let her go, pulled away, and sat back on the edge of the cliff with a body that ached in ways he didn’t know it could. His head hung from fatigue. First the titan, now this. He’d never in his life felt like he’d reached the extent of his strength before, but this was it. “I just wanted to fight. At least fighting makes sense.”

“Fighting is a lot of fun,” she agreed. She peeled herself off from the ground and plopped herself down to lie on her side. Her mane fanned out behind her. She worked her jaw a few times to make sure it was no longer broken. It was a favorite target of his. “But it’s a workout. I think you popped my shoulder out of the socket like, seven times.”

“But I won,” he boasted.

“’Course,” she chuckled, a deep sound emanating from her stomach. “You were awesome. Not many people I can fight that hard with.”

He poked the grass tuft beside him, and any façade of a smile left his face. “I could never do that with dad.”

She swallowed. “Yeah.”

He looked at the moth creatures below, and memories flashed through his mind. Reminders. His fist twitched, and he remembered how fragile things could be, how important it was to be careful with those he cared about. His moth.

His mouth felt dry.

“So. Millions.”

She glanced his way, then turned her direction back to the fading skyline. “Millions,” she agreed.

“What does that look like?” 

“It’s a placeholder. I don’t know the real number. But it was a lot.” She let the heavy air between them remain silent as he digested what she had said before she spoke again. “I know it was more than Angelus could ever dream of.”

Connor’s hands curled into a fist. “You were evil,” he muttered bitterly.

“I don’t think it’s that simple.”

“You killed millions of people. Humans like my father, like me!”

“You aren’t human, Connor.”

“Shut up!” His hackles rose. “Humans can talk. They can plead. And you’re just sitting here like they were nothing.”

She glanced his way. “There are many things in Quor’toth that can talk. You don’t seem to care.”

“That’s different. They’re demons, and they’re evil. I’ve seen what they’re capable of.”

“Humans can be evil.”

“It’s not the same!” He dropped his head down to his hands. As much as the rage coursed through his veins, he was tired. He had to sit there with the weight of dubious morality on his shoulders. “Why can’t things be simple,” he muttered. “Why do things have to be so hard to understand? Why can’t there just be an answer that works and never changes?”

She shook her head in sympathy. “You know that world you wanna enter so badly to kill Angel? It’s full of shit like this. People can be more evil than any demon.” She held up her chin with elbows braced against her legs. The view was stunning today. “Say what you will about Quor’toth, at least knocking around a bunch of demons is easier to understand than the drama of humanity. No nonsense. Just a fight. And a winner. The dead and alive.”

He turned to watch the sunset with her. “Why can’t the world always be like that?”

“Because most people aren’t like us.”

He glanced at her. Now that the sun had set, her sclera were reflecting the dim starlight. She glanced at him. They were twin moons looking back at him. “That doesn’t change that you’re a monster. You can’t pretend that that’s complications. You’re worse than Angel.” Admitting it hurt more than he cared to admit.

“I am a monster. I don’t just stop being a demon of hell. I can’t turn it on and off like a switch. I was built to kill.”

“If you had the choice to stop, then you’re knowingly evil,” he hissed. “And if you didn’t, then you’re a killing machine. A soulless monster.”

She closed her eyes. “You grew up told with Holtz leading your life toward Angel. Now you can’t think of anything else. Imagine being told you had to be a monster for thousands of years. Imagine being told it was not only the right thing to do, but entertainment. And with these needs inside you, you had no other outlet. It made sense in your head, because someone was always whispering it to you. I’m no stranger to manipulation, Connor.”

Her words were soothing. He hated it. There was no regret in her voice. Only silent acceptance. She said such horrific confessions with a smile. And yet, he couldn’t quite hate _her_.

He bit his tongue. “Would you change being what you are, if you could?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

The wistful, sad expression on her face broke into a grimace. “Imagine not having your strength. Imagine not having your durability. Your sense of smell. Your speed. All of that power that made you, out like a light. I’ve experienced that before. It’s not a good feeling. I’d never want to go back to being human.”

He leaned in a few inches, the whites of his eyes showing in the moonlight. “You were human?”

“Thousands of years ago.”

“… That’s a long time.” His eyes picked up the lights and dark shadows of the form before him. As young as him. Ageless. She may have been gnarled, perhaps even animal, but he would have never associated time with her if he hadn’t already known. To have always been this way, to know so much more than he ever could… He could feel the chasm of distance between them. It was a yawning hole.

“A little longer than most, yeah.” She straightened and drew her hands to reach out to the empty space in front of them. Inches away was the end of the world. “I’ve seen civilizations rise and fall, Connor. But I came to love humanity a long time ago. There’s beauty in complication. It keeps things fresh. After all this time, I still find myself surprised by what people are capable of. Even what I’m capable of, sometimes.” She dropped her hands.

He went quiet, and they watched the moon rise.

“Who was it,” he ventured. “The moth?”

That sad smile was back. “It wasn’t that long ago,” she mussed. “See, I’d been let go of my duties as a killing machine a while back and was just kind let loose upon society.” She used her hands to dictate the story with sharp motions, all of which kept the destroyer wary and interested. “This dumb shit of an employer picked me up to save me from further ruining the population, so I’d already had a few years of not being a psychopathic murder under my belt. I was just kinda babysitting this kid that couldn’t even take care of themselves, right?”

Connor was utterly lost and not about to interrupt.

“But I met this dude. And he was kind of amazing, a real hero type. He believed in justice, and kindness, like the kind of person that would save a kitten stuck in a tree. He was strong and brash and obnoxious, and he loved food. He made me laugh,” she snorted, “Fuck, did he ever make me laugh. He was immature, but I think he did that because he was trying to capture something he’d lost. And I was the same way.”

Her mouth set in a thin line, and she grew quiet. He tried to analyze what was going between those reflective eyes. “But there was always this one barrier between us,” she explained. “He was a good guy. And I was evil.” The words sunk like daggers into flesh. “Like you said.” She glanced briefly in his direction to see his tensed his shoulders. “I won’t shy from it. Everything inside me has this urge to rip and tear. Not just drink, but eat. It was everything I was, to the point that I thought it was stupid to even think of anything else. Why would I? I’m this immortal demon, time, law, reality, it doesn’t apply to me. Worlds grow and fall, and I remain, absolute. A sun in a flimsy shell of skin and bone. Why – why should I care about what humans are?” She shrugged. “They’re nothing, right?”

He was breathless. She swallowed, and turned away from him. “People didn’t matter. Except, he did. He made realize something, in what he gave me. Everyone has a family.”

Her eyes got soft, lost in thought. Connor didn’t understand that softness in her voice. It’s not something he’d ever heard before, and he didn’t understand. He could feel a pit growing in his stomach.

“Kids are just too fuckin’ innocent, y’know? When you’re an adult, it’s like something changes in you, and suddenly you’re just another evil little monster as bad as any demon. But kids… They’re just different. And I think he helped show me just how much further that extended. Those kids don’t exist in a bubble, there’s a family that needs to care for them. A family that loves them. For him, it was just another page out of his book of being a goody two shoes. Even though he’d never admit it. He’s got pride.” She laughed. “If he knew what I was saying right now, he’d think I was a big ol’ sap. And maybe I am. But he made me that. He made me go soft.”

Beside her, the boy was a mess of frayed nerves and gritted teeth. The pit in his stomach went deep. He kept his gaze down on his own feet, his hands balls into fists that shivered with anger he couldn’t understand. “So you like him.”

“I love him.”

“Oh.”

The fire demon dropped her head back onto the rocky earth of the cliff. “Hey. Joker. It’s you.”

The tension in his body only worsened. “… What?”

“I met you. In a different future.”

He stared at her.

“You’re my moth,” she added.

“But I… I…”

“I know. It’s a lot to take in.”

“It’s impossible.”

“It’s complicated.”

He bristled.

“I know.” Her hand gently patted the side of his leg. “Don’t think too hard about it. It’s probably for the best we don’t open that can of worms. I don’t even know when I’m going to see that version of you again. It’s been nearly eighteen years now.” Her mouth faded into a soft frown, and her eyes cast away from him.

“You miss him.”

“Not as much as I might. I’ve had something to occupy my time.”

“What?”

“You.” She smiled softly. “I’ll admit, I’ve been kind of doing a shit job of keeping you safe, though. Everything I do seems to make more problems than it solves. But, I was really in it for what comes after. People are going to be cruel, and make things complicated, and mess with your head. And I can’t let that happen.”

“You keep saying that.” His voice was bitter. “But I don’t need you. Holtz cares about justice. I trust him. I know that he’ll lead me down the right path to taking down a demon that’s actually evil.”

“Angel found his moth a long time ago.”

“Don’t tell me that soul fixed him. He’s done plenty of evil since then. He needs to be brought to justice.”

“I won’t argue,” she said quickly, noting the way his hackles rose and his body strained. “But I will say, I wasn’t the one to go tell you to fight that titan.”

The Destroyer bristled. “It was a test. And I failed it. And he was worried for me. He was just confused about you.”

“He was manipulating you, Connor.”

“My name isn’t Connor.” 

“In the future, it is. After everything plays out, that’s who you were.”

“But in your future, everything is wrong! Angel isn’t dead. It’s a mess – it’s not what I’m supposed to do!” Fingernails dug into dirt. He was resolute. “I am not going to let that future happen.”

Shift grabbed his leg as she sat up. There was real fear in her eyes. “You don’t want that future?”

“I just… I want a future where I accomplish what I was built to do,” he tried to argue.

“What if that wasn’t your destiny?” She probed. “What if there wasn’t a destiny at all? What if you weren’t built to do anything at all, and you could just exist?”

“But… But that’s not what I have. I have to do this. This is what I was born to do. It’s divine judgment. God placed me in the hands of my father.”

“You don’t have to do anything. You can be yourself. You can choose to do what makes you happy. What makes you happy, Connor?”

“I don’t know!” His voice rose in exasperation.

“Punching things, right? Fighting?”

Swallowing, he reluctantly nodded his head.

“Then do that. Be happy. That’s all I ever want for you.” Frowning, she raised a hand in pause. “You know what, screw what I want, really. Just do what you want. Everyone around you keeps throwing you in this fucking box, the last thing you need is more of the same.”

“It doesn’t feel like a box,” he muttered. “It feels like a purpose.”

“I’ll admit, having a purpose is a good feeling. Not knowing what to do with your life is hard.”

He leaned forward until his head was his hands. “How do you live without one?”

She grimaced. “I enjoy the little things. Like now. Listening to the various things that go bump in the night, beside you like this.” She leaned against his shoulder. “Maybe you don’t like me. But this is enough for me.”

“It feels like drowning.” He looked over to her uncertainly.

She grimaced. “I guess it could.”

His eyes studied the demon before him more closely than before. Her proximity, the softness in her words, none of it was something he understood. But then, that was what Shift was to him. An anomaly that broke him in so many ways. She made the world complicated. He hated complicated.

“What does it feel like?” He asked. “To love someone?”

She tried to piece the ephemeral in her head. “Like butterflies in your stomach,” she mused. “And then a deep warmth, whenever you see them. All you ever want to do is protect them. And like there’s a secret you and they both share, this joke that never ends.”

His eyes shone in the darkness, focused only on her. “But how do you know when that feeling happens?”

“Because you feel like you don’t want to be away from them.” She glanced at him, then looked quickly away. He didn’t falter in that intense expression only he seemed capable of.

“Even if they’re complicated?”

“Being in love with someone means the complicated gets real simple, real fast. It’s you two against the world.”

“But what if they make you feel more complicated?”

“Then it just takes a while. Love doesn’t happen all at once. It’s a journey, y’know?”

“But when does that happen?” He pressed closer.

“Fuck, Connor, I don’t know!” Her voice was a flustered gasp as she briefly glanced back at him. “Stop looking at me like that, you think I know everything there is to know about love? It’s too complicated even for me to understand. It’s a feeling, alright? You gotta feel it.”

“But how will I know when I feel it?” He leaned in closer. “I’ve never even felt it before.”

“If you know, then you know,” she muttered. “It’s instinct.”

“Instinct,” he echoed.

“Exactly. Focus on what you feel, Connor. Everything else is people telling you what to do. The only thing truly not complicated about life is where your heart leads you. It’s when you think about it, that everything starts to break apart. Sometimes you just have to close your eyes, and feel.” 

“What if my heart leads me somewhere I don’t want it to go,” he murmured.

“You’ll never be unhappy with where your heart leads you, because that’s what you want.” She grinned hesitantly back at him. “Anything else would just be lying to yourself, right?”

“… Right.”

There was a second of nothing. A second of him knowing he shouldn’t do this.

Connor closed his eyes, and pressed a kiss to her cheek.


	13. Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This should not have taken this long. Sorry my dudes, school happens.

The demon froze in place as dry, cracked lips brushed against the side of her face, then left as quickly as it came. The movement was awkward and jagged and full of uncertainty. But it had still happened. And there was no going back now.

Silence settled over the two of them. She wasn’t moving. Connor felt like he’d just committed an atrocity. Holtz would have probably agreed.

“Was… Did I do that right?”

“… Yeah. You did a good job.”

Her hand found his, and the two of them continued to sit in silence. The stars shown down above their heads. The sounds of strange monsters and bugs buzzing about made the world seem a lot more alive than it usually did. The air was cold. And she was warm.

His lips formed the question first, before he actually spoke it. “… How can you get butterflies in your stomach without killing them?”

“What?” She blinked up at him in confusion, then blinked as she put it together, and laughed hard into the night air as she playfully shoved him away from her only to come back to leaning against his shoulder. “It’s a figure of speech, kid.”

“I like that.”

She snorted. “Like what?”

“When you laugh.”

The demon’s throat was tight. Tentative slender fingers caressed the face of dirt and sand in front of her. That jaw was one she knew well. He tilted into the touch, his eyes wary and wide. Like she was approaching a wounded, frightened animal, she slowly found her way into his lap, and pressed her face against his chest. He’d grown so tall. His shoulders finally felt familiar to her.

“Ah,” she eventually said. “Yeah, that’s a part of it too.”

“Then I think I like this,” he decided. His hands lay at his sides at first, then slowly they found their way up to her sides, and then her shoulders, where they began to caress the abnormally warm skin he was so fascinated by. “It feels… Nice.”

She closed her eyes. That comfortable silence returned, only this time it wasn’t entirely… Silence. A low rumble that he felt more than heard began to emanate from the small form before hi, until he couldn’t ignore it anymore. It sounded so strange, yet so… Comforting.

“What is that?”

She opened one eye. “A purr, joker. I’m purring. Because I’m happy.”

“Oh. I think like that too.” His fingers drifted to the hair in her eyes and gently tucked it behind her ear so he could get a better look at those shimmering alien eyes. She peered back up at him, and his breath caught in his throat.

“Can I ask you for a favor?” She asked him.

“What do you need?”

“I need to feed.”

And just like that, the spell was broken, and the Destroyer’s whole body was a live wire of tension. She refused to take that look of disgust personally. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to. I just need to eat soon. I haven’t in several days, and that whole fight with titan, and then the sparring – I got nothing left in the tank here. Running on empty, as it were.”

“It’s disgusting,” he muttered. The hair prickled on nape of his neck.

“Maybe,” she said. “But I can make it feel less like that, if you let me.”

“How,” he spat. “You’re a parasite.” He looked down at her, and suddenly felt sick with himself for holding her.

“By being gentle.” She brushed her face up closer and rested her hands around his shoulders. Her nose nudged under his jaw for his neck. His hands gripped her waist and dug in. She didn’t react to what had to be painful. She didn’t even flinch. “I won’t do it if you don’t want it.”

He chewed on his lip.

“Is it going to hurt?” He eventually asked.

“Tiniest bit, I won’t lie. I still need to break skin.”

“Will… Will I still be able to fight, after?”

She laughed against his neck. “Totally.”

The tension slowly left his shoulders. “How long can you go without blood?” He asked.

“Theoretically, forever. But I’m fire in need of fuel, and that’s where the blood comes in. If you deprive me of fuel, I’ll grow fainter and fainter… Eventually, I’ll end up too weak to move. And then getting me going again will take more than blood.” She brushed her lips against his neck. He struggled to suppress that shiver down his spine.

“And water speeds up that process, holy or not,” she breathed. “Dump me in an ocean, and I go out like a light. And then you can cut out my heart, and I die in every way that matters. Just be a shell of myself. Nothing will decay, but I’ll be essentially nothing. And my blood is the worst kind of poison, makes you feel like you’re on fire if you taste it.” She chuckled faintly. “And tear off my arm? I can take that. But crack my horns? That’s a different kind of agony.” 

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I trust you.”

Incredulous, he stared at her. “Why?”

“It’s only fair, don’t you think? I know everything about you. Like what makes you tick.” She nuzzled his neck, and drew another shiver from him. His hands slowly went limp around her waist.

“Fine,” he murmured.

“Stay still,” she murmured, and he did reluctantly as she asked. First, she pressed her lips flush against the skin of his neck, and a faint shiver went up his spine. He tensed as he felt the tips of razor teeth trace over the skin that she was going to break, but then it was her tongue, and there was that good feeling she had been talking about before, coupled with an electric jolt. His hands flew to her head and gripped at her hair, but he didn’t try to pull her away.

There was no stopping her now, anyways. She bit down slowly, just enough to pierce his skin and she was right, it did hurt. But those teeth were needle sharp. They didn’t rip, or tear. And her willpower was iron. She was no vampire unable to control herself. This was Connor. She would never kill him. With closed eyes, she drank deep. Her mouth wasn’t made for sucking, so she lapped, and used her teeth to reopen the wound when his skin began to stitch itself back together. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders.

When she was done, Connor was shivering, and so was she. Willpower to keep from ripping into his throat, she had. What she didn’t have was the willpower to keep her hands to herself.

She pulled away and licked her lips like a satisfied cat. Connor stared. His own blood was dripping from her maw like glinting rubies in the moonlight. The wound was already sealing up again - it had felt no worse than a slime’s attempt to bite him - but it had been so much more than that. Never before had something rendered him speechless like it did just then. Never before has he felt such electricity.

The pupils in her eyes were dilated as wide as could be.

This kiss lasted a lot longer. This time, he tried to copy her, moving his lips the same way she did, touching her where she touched him. Her tongue slipped into his mouth, and he could taste his own blood. With it came prickling disgust in his stomach, and something deeper welling up within him that made him want more. The copper taste, the heat, the body pressing against him, they mingled together and confused his senses. She pressed her chest against his, and he met the touch by pressing closer himself. He closed his eyes when she closed hers. Deafened by the roaring in his own ears, he lived in a lack of understanding anything but touch.

When he opened his eyes, he was on his back, and she was over him, her mouth parted and panting.

“Is this what you were talking about before?” He panted.

“The precursor,” she murmured. Her face flushed. “We… We should stop.”

“Why?”

She swallowed. “Joker, this is… A lot. It’s happening too fast. I don’t want you to feel like I’m pressuring you into something. And I don’t want to be responsible for where this leads.”

He grabbed her arm and made her jump. “Where is this leading?”

“Sex.” She met his eyes meaningfully.

“And what’s wrong with that?”

She closed her eyes like she was in pain. “Do… Do you want that, Connor?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. He glanced around them. The cliff edge was only inches away. The forest was filled with the chirps and growls of predators looking for an easy meal. And the last time that he’d felt like this, his mind had nearly disappeared from him. His faintly shivering hands rose up to frame her face, as if she were a gem he could pluck. But then, slowly, he dropped his hands, and sighed.

“We’re too open.”

“You’re not wrong.” She groaned, and let herself fall on his stomach. She could feel her pulse, quick, fluttering. Raring to go. She covertly bit down on her own lip until beads of blood began to form, and did the same with her nails digging into her palms. Beyond in the woods she couldn’t ignore that something on two legs and slimy was watching and waiting to strike. But she didn’t have to like it.

She rested her head against his chest and could hear the heartbeat. Surprisingly slow. “But you’re really… blasé about this,” she muttered. “I thought you’d be more confused. Averse. I don’t know.”

“What does that mean?”

“Never mind.” She closed her eyes and tried purring again. It came out a strangled groan. “I’m just in hell in more ways than one. Maybe we should just sleep. That would be nice. Are you tired?”

“We should find somewhere safer for the night.” We. It was a good sound to Shift. Trust. He didn’t even blink twice at the thought of holing up with her. It made her heart beat a little faster. But she was already yelling at it to slow the fuck down. The Destroyer made a move to sit up, and she pushed him back down, gently, but firmly.

“I’ll keep watch. I don’t need to sleep.”

“You slept before.”

“That was because I wanted to.” She shrugged delicately. “You were with me. But I’ll be right here this time. The whole time.”

“I still don’t like this. It could acid rain. Or a dust storm could rise up.” He rose up again, and she just as quickly knocked him back down, grinning this time.

“I’ll kill whatever comes out of that forest, joker. And I don’t smell any changes in the weather, do you? We’ll be fine. Sleep. I’m here.” She rubbed her face against his chest, and this time the purr was real.

That feeling in his stomach was back again in full force and she was a comfortable weight. Like a blanket of furs, but she smelled nicer. She felt his hands resting against her waist and quietly cherished this and everything else this night had given her.

The destroyer of Quor’toth slowly dropped his head back, and closed his eyes.

It almost always took Connor running himself ragged to find any ability to rest. The days toiled away at him and made it possible that the terrifying night could be slept through. Those rests were always light. He would wake at any noise deemed out of the ordinary, and in a world like Quor’toth, that was every other sound. He slept best when he couldn’t even move anymore.

He was tired, that night. But it wasn’t the exhaustion that got him this time. It was her.

…

The sun prickled Connor’s eyes. He found himself on his side, instead of on his back, facing the massive drop. The sun was rising on another obsessively hot day. He could hear the moth creatures screeching to each other as they flew from perch to perch in the cliffside. A thin breeze was the only saving grace from the heat.

It was difficult to see ahead of him, though, with the mess of black hair in the way attached to a body still facing him. An arm and a leg lolled around the Destroyer, and his own arm was still resting against the thin form. But her eyes were open, and she was watching him. When he blinked, she grinned.

“Mornin, joker.”

He didn’t know how to react to her with anything other than a thin smile. It didn’t feel quite right. He didn’t stop staring at her, either. She never stopped being any less… Interesting to look at. “… Hi.”

She let him go, and patted his shoulder. “You’re slept well,” she remarked. “There was just one attack, and you slept right through it. One of those bipedal insectoid things with those crocodile jaws and its mate. Wasn’t hard to take ‘em down. I threw one off the cliff.” She nodded to the broken corpse across from them. The head had been torn right off, but the rest remained intact and glistened black in the shade she’d left it under. “And _that’s_ breakfast.”

He licked his lips as he sat up and watched her in observational silence. She remained grinning at him, so he eventually stood as his empty stomach audibly rumbled and went to investigate. His nose wrinkled as he scented the beast, and once he was satisfied, he nodded to himself. “Good,” he said.

As he began breaking down the body for his breakfast, the fire demon stretched like a cat in the hot sun. His work was crude and filled with mistakes thanks to her. His eyes kept straying back the way she moved. She was lithe, her whole body like a single muscle. Her stomach was taught as a drum as she held her breath, then as she sighed, it deflated. She looked like liquid heat made human.

She collapsed back against the rocky ground, and her midriff rode up on her stomach. She didn’t seem to care. She drew her hands behind her head and closed her eyes.

“Why do you wear those clothes?” He asked.

“They’re what I was given when I was made.”

“You could wear something else, couldn’t you? Something that offered more protection.” He held up some of the chitin from the monster. “Like this.”

“Mmmyeah but these clothes always end up finding me again.” She turned about and crawled over to him. He could see her skin where the material didn’t cling to her, all the way down her front.

He firmly turned back to his butchering of the creature.

She sat down in front of him and watched him work. Her hands gripped her ankles as she crossed her legs. “They’re the only thing as fireproof as me,” she continued. “They fix themselves, too, not as fast as me, but eventually, y’know? Magic clothes suspended in time, my creator used to say.” She leaned in closer, and grinned. “Plus, have you seen me fight? There’s not much point to protection. Also, just take a look at yourself.” She gestured to him.

He raised an eyebrow as he glanced up at her.

“Your clothes are little more than leather,” she explained.

“Chitin is bulky and slows me down.”

“And you’re durable. There’s no point to wearing it if your body is already stronger than the armor. It’s hard to hurt you, I know from experience.”

“Your clothes just seem…”

“Sexy?” She laughed.

“Is that what it is?”

She snorted and stood up with another long stretch. “They’re supposed to grab your attention. A guy sees this, maybe thinks I’m easy, and there’s another free meal right there falling into my lap. That’s my guess. It’s worked surprisingly well in the past. Otherwise maybe my creator had a sick mind. Wouldn’t put it past ‘em.”

He went quiet, and focused instead on the creature in front of him.

She ran a hand through ragged hair, and let out the faintest of awkward laughs. It sounded more like a cough. “… Right. Sorry.”

He just quietly shook his head.

“I don’t do that anymore,” she offered.

“I know.” The arm he was gripping was ripped violently from the creature’s body.

She turned toward the woods and tried to not let that awkward silence get to her. “I’m going to get a fire going. You’re not going to want to eat that raw.”

He looked up and made a face. “I could.”

“I know.” She grinned. “But I know you like barbecue better.”

As Connor finished with his carcass, he got to watch the demon light a fire with nothing but a finger. Just a snap, and what took him a few minutes with bow and string suddenly existed in seconds. He stared at it in awe.

Shift had to deal with an overeager Connor asking countless more times to try to light more things on fire. He’d point, and she’d shoot out a gout of fire that lit up his eyes and his face in unbridled intrigue and glee. They stopped when they were in danger of setting the forest ablaze. But they did it with her laughing, and him still chomping at the bit to learn more.

She was right, the meat did taste better cooked, and even better with company that had knowledge and stories to tell. He chewed thoughtfully as he listened to her talk. Every time she thought she was done, he’d ask her another question before she could finish catching her breath, and she’d laugh and give him another answer. He wanted to know about the buildings that touched the sky, the cities that stretched for miles like forests, the people that were so numerous they clogged streets. She explained to him the concept of money, the stupid systems that humans put in place to make killing bad people harder, and in great detail she explained the club scenes. He couldn’t understand why people would choose to drink something that made it harder to fight. She tried to tell him about the fun behind it, but it didn’t really translate.

Shift knew a lot. But there were some things she didn’t know. When he asked her to elaborate on the other demons that existed in that world and how to defeat them, she had to admit she wasn’t from there. She was from another world entirely, with other rules, and other monsters. It was even more alien than the world he came from, and he was _still_ trying to grasp that one. There were different continents in her world, different countries, and different rules.

“What’s the strongest thing in your world?” He asked as soon as he could.

“Gods,” she said, holding out her arms like she was describing a large fish. “Hands down. These things are all powerful. No weaknesses either – unless you count their own personal bullshit. But they can do anything. They think it, and suddenly it exists. Totally overpowered. And kind of annoying.”

“How do you fight them?”

She sputtered. “Connor – no. You don’t. You just hope to hell that they think you’re interesting enough to keep around.”

His eyebrows furrowed. Something that could not be fought. Like a titan. But perfect. Infallible. It was a struggle to comprehend, but then most things were with him. “You can’t even fight them?”

“You wouldn’t even die if you picked a fight with them. You’d just cease to exist, if you were lucky.”

He frowned. “What else is there? What kind of demons are there?”

“There are succubi, incubi, probably the same general idea as those in your world, but I doubt they look and have the same exact powers. Then there are fire demons,” she placed a hand over her chest, “like yours truly.” She grinned. “And dark demons, who’s element is shadow instead of flame – those guys are pretty terrifying when they want to be. More human looking than me, and yet so fucking uncanny it hurts to look at ‘em. And then there are devils.”

“And what are their weaknesses?”

“A Devil Lord doesn’t have a weakness.”

“There has to be a weakness,” he grumbled. “Everything has a weakness. Can’t they be killed?”

“You’d be surprised how many things in my world are immortal. Though, my maker may not have had an outstanding weakness, but she certainly didn’t expect me to be as strong as I was when I wiped the floor with her.” She grinned. “Her name was Phyreonid.” Even saying that name sent shivers up her spine. But using her full name couldn’t do anything two whole worlds away. “I guess calling her a creepy murder clown means nothing to you.”

He quietly shook head. Tendons of meat dangled from his mouth.

“She was a real piece of work. A dragon. A monstrous, evil beast. She, now, _she_ was never human. She was as old as the world. As old as existence. She could bend time to her will. She played with your head. She could make wrong seem right, and she made deals you could never say no to. She answered to only the head honcho of hell himself, Lucifer.”

“Like the bible.” Connor remembered Holtz mentioning it in passing, or sometimes in a more active rant. Sometimes he went into those long-winded sessions using the good book to explain the importance of their justice. It had never really landed for the Destroyer. Nothing but God, who he knew in his heart had delivered him to his father.

“There ya go. Yeah. We got angels, demons, all sorts in my world. All of it is real.”

“Angels?”

“Yeah. Not the vamp, but the creature he’s named after. In my world, they’re annoying goody goodies. Sometimes they’re surprisingly strong, sometimes they can’t do shit when it comes to fighting. It depends on which one you talk to. The one I knew was… Well, crybaby is the wrong word. But she was a bleeding heart. And useless in a battle.”

“She bled?” He asked in confusion.

“No, no, she cared too much. Let other people’s problems get to her. She could see when you were upset, in your soul. She could feel it like it was her own pain and she couldn’t stand that. So, she’d always be putting herself in harm’s way to try to make people feel better.”

“She sounds stupid.”

“She is, yeah,” the demon chuffed. “But she’s also my friend.”

Connor chewed in thought. “Aren’t the demons supposed to hate the angels?”

“We’re extenuating circumstances. A whole lot of stuff in my life is an extenuating circumstance, just a head’s up.” Her eyes grew soft, watching him. “I could say the same about you.”

“About me?” He said through a mouthful of food.

“You can’t exactly say anything about your life is the norm.”

“This is the only life I have.”

“Yeah, true. But I can tell ya right now, it still ain’t normal. And that can be terrible. But it can also be amazing.” She fell back on the ground and looked up at the shimmering sun. “You know what I’m looking forward to?” She asked.

“More blood?”

She snorted. “No, you numpty. When we get the hell out of here. There’s so much I want to show you. We’re going to go to every club in Los Angeles we can find. I’m going to teach you what it means to have fun. Real, actual fun, where you’re not worried you’re going to die a second later. And we’ll even beat the shit out of some vamps together. They always haunt places like that in this world, you’d finally be able to sink your teeth into something.”

“And gain practice to kill Angel.”

She groaned.

“I can’t forget the mission.”

She lolled her body over toward him. “Connor. After what happened with Holtz, do you really think that you can trust him? I’m not gonna tell you to believe me either. But he obviously has something he wants from you. People who want things from you are willing to say whatever the hell they need in order to have their plans come to fruition.”

The Destroyer glowered into his meal. “Taking down Angel was my idea.”

“He implanted it in your mind from birth. I was there for those talks. He crafted an Angel in your mind that you could learn to hate.”

His teeth clenched. “It doesn’t matter. Angel is still a bad person.”

“As bad as me.”

“You’re different.”

“Because I love you? I got news for you, joker. He does too.”

“No, he doesn’t!” He snarled and lunged toward her. She reeled back, but she was surprised at just how wild he’d become. His food was left to the side forgotten as he towered over her like a caged animal with his teeth barred and his hackles raised. Beyond them, the fire crackled. “Then,” his voice cracked. “Then he wouldn’t have left me here.”

“He didn’t leave you, joker,” she murmured placatingly. “Don’t you remember what I said?” She tried to raise her hand to stroke his cheek, but he flinched away. “He tried to run in after you. There was a strike of magic. It got him. I only got in because it was occupied on keeping him out. If it wasn’t for that, he would have run in, guns blazing, and taken you from Holtz himself, bringing you right back into the arms of the family he made for you.”

“But…” His head hurt. “My father couldn’t have been lying about everything. There has to be some truth.”

“There is always truth in manipulation.”

Slowly, he sat back on his heels, and turned to face the fire. He didn’t bother to go back to the cooked meat beside him. For once, he wasn’t hungry. “Maybe… Maybe my father got it wrong, because he didn’t understand. But the things that vampire did, they still happened. He’s still a monster. He’s got a second face.” He looked back at her, and he trailed off. She was watching him with those vibrantly red eyes. A solemn expression.

“He and I are not that different, Connor.”

“I don’t want to think about this!” He threw one of the bones into the fire. “Why can’t we talk about the city more? Or about your world. I’ll take out Angel, and then we’ll go wherever you want to go.”

“We can’t ignore that Angel is a massive part of what’s going to happen. There’s a road you go down, and trying to kill Angel is the first step in a long line of mistakes. It’s dominoes, Connor. A whole bunch of dominoes.”

“I don’t care about dominoes!”

“Connor,” she said as patiently as she could, “I mean that when you do one thing, a lot more things will happen as a consequence. I’m revealing the hand for you. If you choose Angel, things will happen that will just get progressively worse for you. Every choice against him will lead to you hurting more.”

“I don’t see how!”

“Because you won’t be able to help but like him, Connor.”

Connor growled.

“I mean it,” she sighed. “Everything you’ve ever thought about him is going to be overshadowed by how he treats you. And I’m telling you right now, he’s going to treat you like the baby he lost. Fragile, in need of love, and affection.”

He refused to listen. It hurt too much to listen. She was wrong. She was nice, but she was wrong. “That wouldn’t happen. I wouldn’t let it. He doesn’t deserve anything but a stake through his heart.”

She sighed. It was a deep, tired noise, full of resignation. “Alright, joker. I won’t argue with you.”

This wasn’t the time. They’d covered a lot of ground in the past couple of days. She’d need to give him time for everything to sink in.

And she still had Holtz to think of. The man wasn’t going to let losing Connor go smoothly. Losing was a strong word, with the way the kid was talking, but she could see the beginning of the end. Him caring about her like this was already more than Holtz would ever put up with. She’d broken through so much, and the man would never forgive her for what she’d done. There had to be some kind of stupid ace up his sleeve. That’s the kind of shit that Holtz loved. Her money was on Connor being used against her in some way, or vice versa. That was the kind of games he liked to play.

Connor watched the fire, and Shift laid back against the ground. The two remained in silence. Eventually they’d find a way to cross the divide again. And then she’d push it too far again, and he’d attack, and they’d go back to hating each other. And then, maybe, if she pushed far enough, he’d go back to Holtz. A vicious cycle. And every time, she always felt like she was losing him for the last time.

She was right. This couldn’t last.


	14. Confrontation

Days passed. Weeks.

Two wolves hunted together in the day and the night. They sparred together, slept together, and learned that the both of them worked better together than they ever had alone.

Connor learned having someone beside him in the midst of battle brought with it a sense of comfort he’d never felt before. He learned he liked having a warm body beside him when the nights turned chilly. He learned he liked kissing, a lot. He wished he could spend as much time holding her at night as he could fighting alongside her in the morning. But every morning he’d awaken to her sitting beside him, red eyes facing the monstrous outside world with the stone wall of the overhang they called home that night to her back. He’d massage her shoulders, and the guarding pose would melt away into purring and the butting of her head against his shoulder.

The fear of letting her take all night watches disappeared little by little as every morning he awoke to nothing but the comfort of her form. She was a moonlit sentinel that let nothing get passed her. These nights were the most restful he’d had in recent memory. They alone would have made the feeding worth it.

It still weirded him out, but the heated kissing sessions after made it palatable. Who was he kidding, he was amazed by them. Something he kept expecting to react violently to was made so much sweeter when it was _her_ lips on him, guiding him with those soft reassurances and the hands that touched him places that made him just as confused as he was eager. Every bite became associated with a prickling up his spine, one that he was growing more curious about each day. She was reserved, too reserved for him, even though in the back of his mind he knew he had been the one to tell them not to go too far for fear of letting his guard down. They always came away from her feeding with both frustrated and wanting more.

Connor didn’t talk about Holtz.

The question of where he was going to end up was amorphous, unanswered, and untouched. He kept expecting to see the man break through the tree-line with a kill slung over his shoulder and dozens of new stories to tell around the campfire that they would share with Connor’s newfound demonic love. There would be an explanation too, of course. His father cared about justice. As soon as he gave Shift more than a few seconds to explain herself, he’d know the truth just like Connor. If he could accept the boy as his son when he was the biological creation of his worst enemy, he could find it within himself to accept that she had changed for the better.

Even Connor still found it hard to reconcile the concept of Shift. Whenever he looked at those soft red eyes peering up at him affectionately, he couldn’t fathom the same face digging into millions of innocent people. He just couldn’t see that hatred and death and pain when she smiled, when she laughed, when she pinned him. The two were like oil and water. He’d brought her to the brink in their battles, and even in those moments he could only see a wild, beautiful monster.

Holtz had to see that too. He had to see sense eventually. And then, maybe, they could live happily together, the three of them. Shift talked about how amazing the other world was. They could live there. Together. Hunting and eating barbecue and watching movies and going to bars. Getting a permanent metal cage and lining it with fake fur pelts to keep warm.

For god’s sake, she coddled him. No matter how many times he said he could take care of himself, she’d be hunting his own meals for him and bringing them back like a house cat with a sparrow. Any fight he found himself on the wrong end of would end with his opponent fried extra crispy and a sheepish Shift standing off to the side offering excuses. After the umpteenth time he’d had to pull her to the side and growl at her to stop. And she did, for a little while. But that care for him wasn’t something she could bottle and keep way forever.

Holtz had to see that. 

Two weeks later, and his wishful thinking turned into reality. Connor scented him, rather than saw him. His eyes went wide, and he stopped his sprint so fast that his feet skidded across the acid moss and right into a murky body of water. The tiger that had been running alongside him stopped too, and raised her blocky head with her mouth half open to scent the air just as he did. Her ears flattened when she confirmed what he’d known from the moment it hit his nostrils. Large claws dug into the marshy ground beneath her, and her fur stood on end. Immediately, she was ducking her head from side to side, looking for the trap that they might have already walked into.

“He’s back!” Connor exclaimed. He pulled himself back out with the same exuberance he’d fallen in and was back at her side in moments, gripping the tiger by her ears and tightly gripping her cheeks like she was an overlarge kitten. “I told you he wouldn’t leave us! He must have been tracking me. I bet it was one big misunderstanding.”

“Something’s off,” Shift said, her voice muffled in the midst of changing back to a more humanoid form. She batted his hands away, and even she couldn’t fight the soft grin at how excited he could be. He let her get a little more room as she stood back on her own two feet. “I might be able to smell him, but he’s not here. Not that I can see at least.”

“He must not know we’re here,” he said. “We were hunting, quiet.”

“We weren’t that quiet,” she argued. “And I dunno if you know Holtz as well as I do, but the dude isn’t about to just let us go our merry way without keeping tabs on the two of us the whole time. He has to know we’re here. ” She cursed. “I hate being nervous.”

“He’s not like that,” Connor argued. “If we went and explained everything, he would listen. He believes in truth and justice. He would see you. He has to know about how you really are.”

She gently grabbed his arm, and offered a small smile with only a little fang poking through. “Connor, you’re sweet. But don’t you remember how we left him? There were some serious discrepancies in the shit he was selling, how can you excuse how he manipulated you?”

“No one was thinking,” he reassured her. “Everyone was just arguing and fighting, but this time it’s different.”

Her grip tightened on his arm, rubbed it, and said nothing. His unwavering hope made her sick to her stomach. They’d gone off the reservation and she couldn’t pull cards from her deck of future knowledge anymore, so she didn’t know exactly how Holtz was going to react. But it wouldn’t be good.

She couldn’t believe her hands were shaking. What was she doing, being afraid of some human? Holtz was just a boogeyman. The only thing he could damage was Connor’s mental health. 

“Alright,” she hissed between pointed teeth. “So we go looking for him. Bury the hatchet. Pretend like nothing’s wrong. You’re okay with that?”

“I want my father back.” He leaned his head against hers. “I know him. He would never leave things like this.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” she muttered.

“I have to apologize.” He took a step back and she tried not to roll her eyes too hard. “We have to set things straight. And I have to show him that you’re not evil. He’ll understand.”

“He won’t,” she said, but didn’t press it further. She followed along with him knowing that this was a fool’s errand. There was no point arguing with the impenetrable, stubborn walls of the Destroyer. There was no way the fire demon was leaving him on his own, either. They were doing this together, and there was nothing she could do about it.

She wanted to silently hunt down the man in case they were faced with less than an affectionate reunion, but Connor insisted on the open-handed approach. This was Holtz. He trusted his father with his life. The young man truly believed in him.

Connor followed his nose with Shift close behind and came to one of the massive rock formations with its deep whorls, prickled with holes. The formation itself was mountainous, but it was all one dark stone broken into smaller chunks. Titans often uprooted the geography and rearranged to suit their rage-induced needs. This one was old, and covered in moss.

The Destroyer often spent time in places like these in his youth, killing the slugs and other monsters that made their homes in these wet and cold places. The porous stone filled with rain distilled by time, thus growing palatable to a lot of creatures normally susceptible to the acid in it. It was the perfect spot for these things to breed like wildfire. But they were weak. If he poisoned the water or used fire, they suffered and died.

He eyed a puddle of water to his left as he began to ascend and wondered just how much deeper that hole in the rock went. What creature could be living in it at this very moment? He wanted to stick his arm in and find out.

The climb continued. Shift lagged behind, red eyes glancing between the deep gouges of rock for any sign of the man and finding nothing but a stronger scent and stronger anxiety. There had to be something she was missing. After all this time they’d spent alone, they’d be the ones to just _find_ Holtz out here? In the middle nowhere?

She wrinkled her nose at the scent of burning wood and meat. A campfire. He was a sitting duck, broadcasting his location. He wanted them to find him. 

God, she hated this.

At the summit, of the structure, the ground flattened like the top of a mountain had been cut off. Sickly underbrush, heavy with jagged spikes and inedible berries, drew their gnarled roots down into the plentiful porous holes that the rainfall had wrought into the sheer stone face. Massive boulders, perhaps remnants of the destroyed summit, lay like sleeping creatures around these considerable whorls. As she passed by one of the holes, she kicked a stone in, and listened as several seconds passed before it splashed in the water below.

And Holtz just sat there, surrounded by a few shrubs and a ring of stone rocks. His old, battered form was folded in a sitting posture, turning the leg of a demon over the hot coals to a sizzling perfection. He had been watching them the whole time.

“Son,” he smiled. “You found me.”

Connor ran to him in a second, kneeling before him in a way that made Shift’s eye twitch. “Of course I would, father. I could never leave you.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” he said. He stroked the boy’s hair and gave a thin smile. “You are too loyal, Steven.”

After hearing his other name for the past two weeks, the sound of Steven on Holtz’s lips felt strange to the boy.

“Yes,” he said after a moment of a hesitation.

“But you brought that creature.” His eyes fell on the fire demon skulking by the edge of the fire. She watched him like a hawk. She wouldn’t approach, and kept flicking her expression to the man’s arsenal of weaponry resting so casually beside him. It was in shambles, cording left scattered, like he was the recent victim of some attack. He wasn’t on guard, and that just made everything worse. “It makes me wonder just what your definition of loyalty means,” he continued, “when you fraternize with demons.”

“She’s not who you think,” Connor was quick to interject. Kneeling beside his father like the loyal son he was, he grabbed the old man’s hand and felt his pulse, weak and slow. “Father, I’ve been with her for weeks. I’ve learned things. She wants to help. She cares. And… And I love her.”

Holtz’s unreadable expression gazed down upon his son. Hands with loose skin gripped his son’s palm tight. His mouth was set in a thin, frowning line.

Her hackles raised. “Connor,” she murmured.

“Maybe she doesn’t say my name right, but she - she’s just confused,” Connor said, and smiled up at his father. The man was stone. “We’ve spent so much time together, father, and I wanted to show you what I’ve seen. We talked about the future. She wants to come with us to the other world.”

“Is that so?” The man spoke in a quiet, monotone dirge.

Connor continued in animated bursts. “We could take down Angel together, the three of us! He wouldn’t stand against us in a fight. We’d kill him, and then we could live together. She said this place is better than Quor’toth.” He cast his eyes down at the ground and took a breath for the first time in ages. “Quor’toth is my home. But if you always say this place is your prison, then… Then maybe we could live there. Together. If you wanted to be free.”

The elder hunter tenderly stroked his son’s hair. His boy. The one he had put his heart and soul into. He was just as the man remembered him. His Steven was always too wide eyed and exuberant for his own good.

“Do you know what love is, Steven?” Holtz asked quietly.

“It’s when you want to keep that person safe,” he tried to recall, and even looked back to the demon as though she could provide confirmation that he had to feel for himself. It was difficult to put into words, and for a few moments Connor was quiet in solemn thought. “You… never want to be away from them.” He turned back to his father, and rose to his feet in confidence. “I know what I feel. I know I care about her.”

Shift edged closer but kept that slowly roasting fire between her and the monster that kept his claws so firmly buried. Just sitting there. Talking. Chatting the day away like they had never left. And yet the chill in those eyes were unmistakable. She was waiting for the other shoe to fall. “Joker,” she murmured in warning.

The Destroyer glanced her way, then turned back to his father, and crossed his arms. “I kissed her, and I slept with her,” he added.

Shift choked.

“Excuse me?” Holtz narrowed his eyes.

“Isn’t that what it is? Sleeping together and waking up together? She never once attacked me when she guarded me every night. She brought me kills even when I didn’t need it. She had every chance to hurt me, and she didn’t. We can trust her.”

The kid may have said it with a straight face, but Shift was dying in the corner with saliva going down the wrong hole.

“CONNOR,” She coughed. “YOU DON’T – FUCK.”

“You are too naïve to know what love is, son.” Holtz stood up slowly on creaking bones. As he walked to the boy, he avoided some of the larger holes that dotted his camp. Some of them were so far down that you started to wonder if there was even a bottom. Connor had never been quite dumb enough to jump into one and find out, because the hole was slick and smooth and there was no way he’d be able to climb back out. He’d come close.

“You don’t understand it,” the elder man continued with quiet, plodding resignation. “Because you didn’t need to know. Your future is Angel and nothing else. Whatever comes after, I will grant you, you are young and I am certain you will want a family of your own some day. I would be proud of you for it.”

He turned on his son, and Connor stepped a few inches back. “But Steven,” he spat, “really. With a demon? Can’t you see what you’re doing? Your obsession with her has existed for years. You could never get her out of your grasp no matter what I did to alleviate it. All because she’s the only creature in this entire dimension that is even close to female. She’s the Eve to your Adam, son, a deliverer of twisted punishment wrapped in what you find desirous. But the other world, _our_ world, it’s filled with possibilities. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“You’re wrong!” Connor insisted. “She’s not just a demon, dad. There’s something else there, can’t you-”

“Wrong? You’re calling me wrong?” Shorter and stockier than Connor, he still made the boy flinch when he rounded on him. The hand he only used when “needed” was half raised, the shock of his son’s audacity taking time to fully register. He lowered it with a glance in the demon’s direction.

She was utterly murderous. “Holtz,” he snarled. “You put a fucking hand on him, and the time for talking will be over. Got it?”

Holtz’s eye twitched. “Connor,” he murmured dryly, “you’re showing me a demon and asking me to see if there’s any humanity in her. You were trained to hunt things like her.” He slowly shook his head. “I can’t believe I raised a defective child. A deviant.” His nose wrinkled like it was a curse, his voice a hiss.

“She’s not the same,” Connor implored to his father. There was still hope in those wide, blue eyes. They were talking. Talking was good, right? They could get somewhere with words. He just needed to show his father the truth now.

“This is useless,” Shift growled. She’d been keeping her comments to herself just in case they had another episode like last time with the kid running off to lick his wounds from all the yelling, but even she could see that they were dealing with a brick wall. Connor was looking for nonexistent kindness, and it hurt to watch. 

“No,” Holtz resumed, unabated by her interruption. “She’s smarter. Out of all the monsters you have fought in this world, they have always been mindless killing machines. But you will have to learn that when we find our way back into our world again, you will be faced with creatures just like her. Vampires are built to be persuasive. If you can’t control yourself around her, how would you control yourself around Angelus? He’s your father. It would be simple to get you onto his side.”

“No,” Connor said firmly. “She’s not like that.” All it took was a look in her direction to remind himself. He saw her and he saw the one that had caught him in the fall that was meant to kill him. He looked at her, and he saw the one that had stood over him every night to make sure he slept through it. He looked at her and he saw the one that had only ever told him the truth. Actions were worth more than words could ever be.

She cursed under her breath, then sighed. “Connor. Holtz won’t listen.”

“She’s trying to tear us apart, Steven,” The elder man hissed. “Look at her, using the name that monster gave you, and trying to pull you away when we’ve been apart for so long. Can’t you see what she’s doing to you?”

“She just wants me to be happy!” The Destroyer could feel the overwhelming anxiety beginning to prickle at the back of his throat. “I want us all to be happy. Not just me. You mean everything to me.” His eyes filled with tears. “I wouldn’t be anywhere without you.”

“You’ve always been too emotional.” Holtz’s words were soft and poisonous. As he walked along the edge of the fire, his uncertain and rickety gait set Shift further on edge. Keenly aware of his wobbling movements, she tracked him. And yet, there was nothing there. His face was just sad, resolute. There was no water on his waist in a flask. No knife in his belt that he could reach so easily. And yet, he followed her. There was no way she’d be intimidated by such a broken old man. Not one without weapons. And yet, she found herself carefully finding her footing behind her and looking for ways to keep as wide a berth from him as possible.

“I mean it.” Connor’s voice cracked. “Dad. Please.”

“You’ve lost sight of justice. You already have, haven’t you? She must have spent hours worming her way into your head-“

“Dad-“

“Let me finish,” he snapped. “One day, you’ll listen to her. You will find Angel, and you will get lost in his actions and come to believe him a good creature, much like her. And you’ll lose sight of everything you’ve worked for.”

“I won’t!” Connor begged. As Holtz continued to hobble around, Shift kept a wide distance, and Connor just stood there on unsteady legs with a heavy chest. “Why can’t we be happy? Why does this have to be complicated? Why does everything have to be _complicated_?”

“It’s a bastardization of the concept to call _this_ love.” He spat with his words, and his tongue turned cold when his eyes became entirely focused on her. As he ventured closer beyond the firepit, she could feel behind the stone beginning to slip at the edge of one of those deep whorls in the stone. He’d pushed her to the edge. But she wasn’t a fucking idiot, and he had to know that. He didn’t have the strength to push her in. It was pitiful, his attempts to intimidate her. She wasn’t shaking with fear, she was shaking with annoyance. That had to be it.

“Speak for yourself, rejected sausage casing,” she hissed. She pointed an accusatory claw at him and took a step forward. He didn’t react, but it made her feel better. “You would know all about bastardization,” she snarled. “You just love to use the word justice for whatever suits you. But I know what you’re about. Revenge. Well, fuck it, you won the jackpot to that when you stole Connor away. And you’ve thrown in enough fuel to make him hate _for_ you. All you’d have to do is light the match now. Push him to a knife’s edge, give Connor hope, pretend like all of this was a sham and he should be back with his real father, and then fake your murder. Kill yourself, just to seal the nail in the coffin. And watch the dominoes fall to his own damnation.”

“What hearsay is this?” The man hissed. “I’d never harm my own son, nor would I push myself to such lengths. Look at her Steven, the things she says. She’s entirely focused on tearing you away from me.”

“Dad, no!” he pleaded. “You have to see it. Please. She’s not what you think. She’s just confused – both of you are. We can work together. Please.” He took a few steps forward, and reached his hand to clasp onto his father’s shoulder. Squeezing gently, he thought for a moment he saw softness in those eyes. He saw hope.

He was wrong.

“It seems I can’t get through to you anymore,” Holtz sighed. “So be it.” He smiled. “Steven, this is for your own good.” He gently removed Connor’s hand from his shoulder, then kicked his foot.

Beneath his leather shoe was the cording splayed from his pack-sack, thrown throughout the camp in what Shift was sure had been some haphazard manner. Only, when he pulled at it, the loop at the end fit his foot perfectly. And as he tugged on the switch roughly with a grunt, Shift’s eyes widened.

The cord was connected to a series of different weights, carefully hidden in the rock formation that bordered the top of the mountain. As the series of traps sprung around them, rocks knocking into each other one after another in succession in an incomprehensible pattern, she shuffled from side to side with her hackles raised, looking for where the hell this stupidity would end up. “The fuck is this?” She snarled. She kept turning her head as every boulder seemed to move, one after another. He had to know this was stupid, right? There was no way such an obvious trap like this would get to her.

Even Connor, bristled and nervous as her, didn’t seem fazed by the knocking together of rocks. “Dad?” He asked as he turned to the older man. “Dad, what-“

Connor just managed to catch Holtz as he pushed the already off-balance and unfocused Shift into the well right behind her.

There wasn’t even a scream.

And then his trap finished, and the boulder he had rigged went in after her. It was a perfect, seamless fit, with little more than an inch of space in that circular hole. As if the rock was made for the hole. And so was she.

There was a full minute before they heard the splash.


	15. Drowning

“Now you see, Steven,” Holtz said. “She was a distraction. You have to understand that she was bad for you –“

Connor jumped into the hole.

Shift had been immersed in water before. It never really went well, she had to say. The last time had been her own fault, doing it because she had thought maybe trying swimming wasn’t such a bad idea. She’d lasted all of five minutes of the torture before being pulled from the water little more than a corpse.

But this was different. This time, there was no light, and no way to the surface.

The minute she’d hit the water, it had risen to a temperature so hot the first foot turned to steam. The rest boiled so violently around her that it lifted her briefly up with its force. She’d tried to swim, tried to look for a way out digging her nails into the smooth sides and nearly found purchase, but that lasted all of two seconds before the boulder hit.

It smashed into her chest, and coughing, sputtering, she was dragged down into the depths. The water, first heated to boiling, was quickly growing colder as she was forced at breakneck speeds further into the depths by a rock that must have been thirty times her weight. She bit, scratched, and tore, but the fire was going out far too quickly. Her punches were growing weaker by the second. Chunks of dark stone fell in chips away from the face that had her pinned, but they were a pittance. In uncanny silence, the smooth stone wall around her raced by. When she turned around, even her cat eyes couldn’t see the bottom. It was nothing but darkness stretching out to accept her.

She opened her mouth to scream, and water filled up her lungs. Her humanoid body, so used to breathing air, was now filled with acid burning her from the inside out. She couldn’t breathe. There was no bottom. She was going, down, down, down. Black, gnarled hair twisted and turned. Pale fingers grasped at the stone as tight as a vice, trailing blood behind. She’d worn the tips of her fingers down to the bone.

She had the power of a sun inside her, and none of that mattered anymore.

Slowly, the grip on the bolder loosened.

She tried to string thoughts together. A plan, there had to be a plan. After all, there had to be out of here, wasn’t there? There was always a way out! She wasn’t going to just sit here and let this happen, right? What happens now? How does she pull off the incredible? How does she take down _this_ god?

She stared at the boulder in front of her, hurtling her down further and further, and came up blank. Her eyesight grew poor the further down she was sent, but more than that, it was her brain that was beginning to shut down. She mouthed words at the edge of her tongue to try to keep the thoughts alive. She needed to survive. She needed to stay cognizant. She needed to remind herself why she was here, and why she needed to live. She might have been a drowned engine, but she was still desperately trying to chug along.

She gulped more water. Eventually, even that reaction stopped. Her brain could survive without oxygen, but her lungs burned. Everything burned. She was on fire, and yet she’d never felt so cold. With fuzzy eyes, she peeled back a hand to look at the bones under the pads of her fingers. She was just, falling. Dying. Breaking down. There was no fire left to heal her.

Floating, in nothingness. And then, the burning stopped.

There was a crack, somewhere. Something disturbed her quick and effortless descent. It could have been her own body finally pulling apart at the seams. She wouldn’t have felt it anyways. Everything was bitterly, bitterly cold. That would be nice, she thought vaguely, to not hurt. If she was stuck down here, better to have no knowledge of pain. No knowledge of anything would be better.

There were still flashes. Of a man she loved. Of a family she left behind. Of a world she cared for. Of friends, family, enemies that would miss her almost as much as she missed them.

God, there really wasn’t a bottom, was there.

Another crack, then another. Pieces of stone slipped past her. She couldn’t hear it anymore, nor feel it.

How many minutes had she been falling? Had it been hours? Where was she again? Felt like it could be a womb.

The hurtling rock cracked along a seam, and finally erupted into gravel that went skittering off against the sides of the smooth walls and down to the depths were it was claimed by the center of the earth. Finally, Shift came to a slow and tumultuous stop. Connor stared at her. Her eyes, the ones that glowed so bright, were dark in the tunnel. She just hung there in the water, little more than rubble. His lungs burned and his cheeks bulged, but he had enough air to grab her by the shoulder and pull her towards the surface.

They had gone far. The edges of his vision were darkening as he booked it for the surface. She was like nothing in weight to him. Couldn’t have been more than a hundred pounds. All of that strength, and barely any muscle. Little more than a ragged and waterlogged skeleton now.

The stillness of the water was breached suddenly by the gasping Destroyer with his dead doll held in a tight grasp. By the time they’d surfaced, Connor had been under for nearly seven minutes. He coughed and hacked and gasped for air, slick brown hair clinging tightly to clammy skin. Weighted down by his clothes, he was struggling to tread water.

“Shift,” he called out desperately in between his struggles. He turned her soaked, pale form to face him. Her dull pink eyes were open and sightless.

No. No no no no.

She couldn’t be.

She couldn’t.

She said she couldn’t.

His stomach was turning as he roughly pressed his ear against her chest. “Please,” he whimpered. “Please. Please…”

In between the dripping water and rumbling of some far-off titan, he could hear it. The faintest heartbeat.

Holding back a sob, he hugged her tight.

He threw the demon’s arms around his shoulder and held her there with one hand, then looked up helplessly to the sheer height above him. The surface was a pinprick of sunlight. Seconds went by staring up at that impossible goal before he looked down to the demon in front of her. He swallowed, and gripped her tighter.

Bracing his free arm and both legs against the sides of the smooth tunnel so that he was horizontal, he faced the sunlight with Shift’s body on top of him. Then he began ripping his shirt to pieces with his teeth and the hand that no longer needed to hold her up. With such rough work, he was left with just enough material to tie her arms together around his neck and leave her dangling behind him. 

“I’m going to get us out of here,” he told the unresponsive corpse in between ragged breaths. “And then we’ll go to Los Angeles. And we’ll get drunk at a bar. We will.”

Rubbing against the smooth walls of the tunnel, he grit his teeth. It was slick, slimy. He gulped, braced himself tight against the sides with all four of his limbs, then began his ascent.

The first five times, he failed. Less than a hundred pounds of body was still nearly a hundred pounds of dead weight holding him down.

But he could do this, he kept telling himself. He was the Destroyer. There was nothing he couldn’t kill. Nothing he couldn’t do. No mountain he couldn’t climb. He could do this.

He had to do this. It couldn’t end here.

He kept trying.

On his sixth try, he managed to get up a few more feet than before. His hands were raw, but that was a success.

Slowly, making mistakes that sent him all the way back down again over and over again, he made his way further. His back ached. He gasped with effort. He didn’t know how much of this questionable water he’d swallowed. But he was moving forward.

He made it twenty feet before he dropped again – he forgot what number try that was. But then he made it thirty feet. And then forty. He lost count. Single-minded, with his eyes on the pinpricks of sunlight that grew with every try, he could taste blood in his mouth where his teeth had bitten into his tongue.

The sunlight touched his cold, shivering skin. His hand sought purchase at the edge of the hole, and with heaving effort and technical difficulty, he used the last of his upper body strength to drag them up to the surface. The body behind him slumped against the rock and underbrush, and he collapsed too.

Holtz was gone, and so was the campsite. They were alone.

If that man had stayed, he wasn’t sure what he’d do.

He turned to Shift and tenderly removed a strand of wet hair from her ashen face. She was in bad shape. Completely waterlogged, when he pressed down on her chest in compressions, her mouth and nose were like twin faucets. His throat tightened, he gritted his teeth, then shoved his arm against her face.

“Come on,” he growled. “Bite down.” When there was no reaction, a whine died in the back of his throat. “Please,” he said softly. “Come on.” He gripped her jaw with his free hand and pushed her pointed jaw down sharply on his own arm. The puncture made him draw in a sharp hiss at the unexpected pain. Blood flowed freely down his pale skin onto her open jowls. But it wasn’t enough. He had to give her more.

Her teeth were sharp enough to provide the blade that rent his flesh from bone. With choked gasps, he took more away from himself, until he could see the tendons and sinew that connected his own fingers to his hand. He’d shorn all of the flesh he could manage. Black dotted his vision, and vomit kept threatening his throat, but she chewed.

And she swallowed. 

And yet, still, it wasn’t enough. He tried with the flesh up his arm, but there was too much blood. The dizziness exacerbated, he felt like he was choking on his own tongue. She drank, and she drank, with what little strength she had, but that was all she could do. Her eye color never changed from that pale, dull pink. She continued to stare up at the sky like a broken doll. When he pumped her lungs again with his good arm, there was more water. He kept at it until none came out, but even after that, even as the two of them baked in the sun until it was low on the horizon, she was still.

Connor wept.

As time passed, the sunset stretched out before them, taunting them with a reddish glow. Connor’s skin was hot. The blood on his arm had coagulated and caked against the rock face beneath him. He’d caught his breath, but now he stared at the beginnings of twinkling stars in silence, as unmoving as her. He had no energy left to cry.

It was pitiful. They were both so pitiful. What was once such strength had been taken down to little more than a body lying across from him. She was dry as a rock, and it didn’t matter. On her side, facing away from him because he couldn’t bear to look at her face. Something so expressionless and broken tore at his psyche.

Struggling to sit up, he reached over, and squeezed her chilled hand. His shoulders shook as he felt the faintest squeeze back.

Dump her in an ocean, and she goes out like a light. Weak. Broken. Lacking fire. A waterlogged coal. He stared down at the warm skin that now seemed so pale, and never felt so helpless.

No fire.

She needed fire.

Connor snapped up.

He flew over the rock face breaking apart shrubs with the one knife he had left on him, a small little thing in a holster around his ankle. They were dry enough to work, and cracked when he broke them apart, revealing dry and deadwood within most of them. Each one he went through, he hefted onto the same pile and immediately went to the next. Often he’d trip over the stone pebbles or nearly end up spinning right into another hole in his haste. But he couldn’t slow down. Not when he kept finding her body back in his peripheral vision. It was getting colder as the night began to settle. A cold that could kill.

The pyre was nearly as tall as him, and long. Now came the hard part.

His exhausted, shivering fingers were impossible to work with. He kept trying to slam the flint against the steel, and only ended up with bloody stubbed thumbs and panting breaths. Eventually, he threw them away with an angry roar, and dragged himself back up to his feet. More energy wasted.

The bow drill wasn’t much better. It was crudely fashioned – the wood up here left much to be desired – but at least it didn’t require the fingers that he’d already turned to mush and bruises. He moved his hands solemnly back and forth and tried to time his breaths with the pattern of movement to calm himself down. Even if he felt like screaming, felt like going after Holtz, felt like turning his hands to rubble with those stupid rocks if it meant he could get a usable spark.

The shade of darkness threatened over his vision. Adrenaline had long since left his body. The rest in the afternoon had done little to replenish his strength. And his whole body sagged with the force of energy he’d spent getting them out of that hole. His arm burned.

But she’d spent the last seventeen years trying to save him. This was the least he could do.

An hour later, and the stars were out. He could barely see in front of his own two half lidded eyes. He didn’t even realize that there was smoke at first. The repetitive action of running the bow and the mantra to keep working had been the only focus his miserable mind could keep. But then he smelled smoke. And his eyes drifted down. And his heart started pounding.

He was gentle, ever so gentle with that tiny little spark. He blew on it gently, lightly, and breathed life into that pile of shavings. It burned already dry and cracked skin, but none of that mattered.

He set that pile down in the center of that wood pile and blew until that darkness in his vision made the world spin.

Words could not describe the joy in his heart when that fire roared to life before his very eyes. He laughed out loud. Crackling before him was a pyre with flickering flames as tall as him. The dry wood belonged in the flames. The smoke was black, and billowed up from the top of the rock formation to carry information to any monster within a hundred miles.

Connor couldn’t have cared less. 

A pair of exhausted legs strode to the body of the demon and unceremoniously grabbed her from under the arms, then began to drag her back. Waves of dizziness threatened to overcome him. He could feel his own legs starting to give out, coughing and hacking as the smoke blew his way. He didn’t stop.

When he reached the pit, he crouched down, and with the last Hail Mary he had, picked her up and threw her in.

The body lay there in the middle of the fire. He stood in front of it with glassy, tearful eyes reflecting the light of the orange flames. Fists clenched, his shoulders hunched, he waited.

She smoked at first. But then, second by agonizing second, the flames flickered toward her, and braved the trail up the fabric of her clothing, and onto the dull brown skin. Just like a piece of wood, it treated her as fuel. Her ragged black hair burst alight in reds and oranges and yellows. Her pale pink eyes began to draw fire. Those lips still stained with his blood were filled with gouts of flame.

He stared at her as if his willpower alone would make this work.

First, it was a finger that twitched.

And then it was a low moan.

And then Shift slowly reached up a hand to grab her head.

“This is the worst hangover I think I’ve ever had,” she grunted. “What am I lying on? I feel something digging right into my-”

Connor tackled her in the flames.

“You’re alive!” He cried. The bad decision took half a second the register before he was crying out in pain at throwing himself into the middle of an inferno. Though sluggish, Shift immediately shoved him back out with wide, worried eyes. The Destroyer fell back on his hands and had to pat out his pants. His singed hair smoked with an acrid scent.

“You’re alive,” he could only whimper.

“Yeah, I know just – just give me a second, okay?” Cold skin immediately heated enough to burn away any stray droplets. Her hair smoked, and her once pink eyes soon reflected the color flickering all around her. “I’ll be there to hug you as soon as I - no – Connor – Joker don’t cry – Fuck you’re going to make _me_ cry!” The demon forced herself from her bath of fire and went sprawling onto him, gripping him tight in arms that were still a little too hot. The kid didn’t care. He held her tight enough to crack a rib. He probably did.

Connor gulped as he tried to speak. “I… I thought…”

“I don’t die, remember?”

“But the blood didn’t work!”

“Fuel needs a spark. You figured out. You’re smart.” She grinned up at him, her eyes smoking. “I knew you’d get it.”

The two lay there entangled in each other’s arms and half laughing, half sobbing, like a pair of absolute idiots.


	16. Rueful

She stayed in the fire until the moon was high in the sky. The pyre had burned down to coals, leaving little flickering light on top of the rock formation. The Destroyer had long since fallen asleep sitting up, and over the course of the evening she’d watched him slowly tumble over onto his side with a faint snore.

She pulled herself out, wiped away the ash, and lay down facing his closed eyes and gentle breaths. A pale, gaunt face, sweating, and faint shivers. Heatstroke and bloodless, if she had to guess. She recognized those teeth marks in his arm. She couldn’t even remember it. She had been _out,_ a haunting thought. Fuck, that had never even happened before. Briefly, she imagined a world where he hadn’t been there. She could still recall the water, dripping into every orifice. The breath that wouldn’t come to her. Her systems shutting down until there was nothing left. The thought that just for a moment, she would never see her life again. The people she cared about. That would have been the end of her.

A real crappy end, too.

Connor was warm, and she held him as tight as a vice. Not as warm as the fire, but she would take him over simple fire any day of the week.

He was dreaming; his face was twitching into a frown, and his hands were curled into tight fists. So many nightmares could be whirling through his head, and they would all be her fault. She could have been the one to keep him away from this mess. This is what she was here for, wasn’t it? She could have taken him away from that man the minute they went through that portal. She could have raised him like a son. She could have kept that space between them that should have been there from the beginning in this twisted timeline. But no. She had to be as bad as Jasmine.

But she had made her bed. And right now she had a boy shivering in her arms and in need of rest. Skin melted to fur, and the tiger’s paws gripped his bare side as the blocky head nestled above his own framed by gnarled locks. Red eyes stared at the edge of the mountain around them. The resolute feral sentinel would be watching out for him through the night.

When sunlight tickled the young man’s eyes and the smell of charred meat reached his sensitive nose, his eyes flew open. In seconds, the memories rushed through him, and he was fight ready as he rose from the flat rock that had been his bed. But there was no fighting to be had. Instead, there was a feast laid before him and his hollow stomach. The demon sat beside the pyre that she has coaxed back to life and prodded a demon with too many legs she’d thrown onto it. As Connor edged himself over, she turned quickly to face him. The wound was already sealed and healing, but sloughed off skin wasn’t something you recovered from immediately. “You need to eat,” she said, as she turned back to rip off a limb from the carcass. “You let me drink too much.”

“You needed it.” He took it without question and began to eat before he’d even settled himself down beside her. She wasn’t about to get in the way of the Destroyer and his meal.

“You needed it more.”

Connor and cleaned his fingers of the grease and fat, then shook his head. “You were gone. I just wish I had the strength to give you more.”

“Connor,” she said in warning.

He frowned. “How long have I been asleep?”

“It’s midafternoon. How do you feel?”

“Hungry.”

She snorted, and couldn’t help but chuckle. “Eat as much as you want.”

Connor burned his fingers ripping out hunk after hunk of morsel from the creature that sizzled and spat fat as it cooked. Swallowing fistfuls of meat, he never paused as he went back for more. The half inch thick exoskeleton was ripped away to make room for grubby fingers still stained with blood and dirt. Each swallow was too hot and too fatty, and he couldn’t get enough of it.

There was silence in the camp other than the sound of his chewing, and the crackling flames. As he ate, Shift watched with a wistful smile.

He’d taken out a good hunk of the creature when he finally belched and sat back in satisfaction. As he chewed the last mouthful he could stomach, though, thoughts bubbled at the surface. She was just sitting there, staring at the food like a hungry animal told to stay and starve.

“Why don’t you try to eat? It tastes good.”

She chuckled to herself like she’d just been told a sick joke. “I can’t, kid.”

“Why not?”

“Even vampires can drink animal blood and still thrive, but I’m not so lucky. If it’s not human, and it’s not fresh, it tastes like ash to me. Food especially, is like sand in my mouth.”

“That sounds like torture.”

She shrugged. “It’s a trade-off. To me, blood and flesh have complicated flavors. They tell stories about the people I feed off.”

Briefly, his face twisted into an expression of disgust. But then he took another thoughtful bite.

“What do I taste like?”

“Right now? A rich chocolate bar dusted with sugar.” She grinned at him. “Smooth going down and tooth-achingly sweet.”

He shot an incredulous look. “Why’s that?”

“Virgin’s blood is always sweeter,” she said matter-of-factly, a conversation she’d had many times before.

He wrinkled his nose. “What’s a virgin?”

She barely avoided choking on her own tongue. “Someone… Someone that hasn’t had sex yet.”

“Why would their blood taste sweeter?”

“Because they’re supposedly untainted.” She tried to play it off as noncommitted as she could. “I don’t know how it works. I just know it tastes sweeter, that’s all I can tell ya.”

Connor thought that was a perfectly reasonable explanation, until the silence provided enough contemplation to continue thinking far too much for Shift’s taste.

“If you can’t taste food, then how do you know how to compare blood to food?”

And there was the impact she was waiting for. It was still rockier than she was expecting. Silence met Connor’s question no matter how long he waited for an answer. She always gave an answer. But when he looked at her, she was chewing on her lip and facing the dying flames of the fire like it held all the answers to her problems. A ruddy hand still stained with fat gently gripped hers.

“I think we should talk about something else,” she said.

“I want to talk about this.”

“It’s probably better that we don’t. It’s more future bullshit. Spoilers, ya know? If I tell you, you’re probably not gonna believe me. Or maybe you’ll get freaked out or something. But it’s better if we just, like, drop it or something. We could talk more about food you’re going to want to eat in the other world – like cake, you should totally try cake, and beef jerky, and hamburgers, and bacon, and-”

“Shift, I want to know. I won’t be mad.”

“It’s… It’s not that you’d be mad.” She turned away from him and appeared to curl in further upon herself. “It’s just confusing, you know? To learn about a possible future when there’s still so much left to get there. There’s context you don’t have. You’re not that person. Well, you’re still Connor, but – but it’s not the same, y’know? It’s scary hearing about things that may not even happen. I’m messing up the timeline just by being here, and maybe you’re not even the Connor I know. Maybe you grow up to be an entirely different one. And maybe that would be my fault.” She buried her head against her knees and her voice grew muffled. “And maybe you wouldn’t believe me.”

“I’d believe you.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. What if I tell you and you believe it too hard? And it just throws you off the natural course of events. Sure, I came here to pull you off the beaten track and make sure that you don’t end up dead and suicidal, but this…” She ran a hand through her hair obsessively. “This shit’s another beast entirely.”

“I want to know.”

“I know you want to fucking know, okay?” She snapped, though her voice lacked the harshness she reserved for Holtz. She turned away from him and rubbed her face. “You’re just a kid. I’m fucking terrible and you’re just a kid. We shouldn’t be talking about this.”

He moved closer, and she pulled away from him. He stared at her like a wounded puppy. She couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Fuck it,” she muttered. “Fine. Like ripping off a Band-Aid, right? Just gotta do it.”

“What’s a Band-Aid?”

“I could eat food when I was pregnant.”

“… That’s the baby thing.”

“Yeah.”

He stared at her with wide eyes.

“Yeah,” she muttered.

“But.”

“Yeah.”

Her eyes were on the fire, poking one of the creature’s wings. Beneath him, the ground was needles digging into his skin.

There were thousands of questions at the edge of his lips that were threatening to tumble out all at once. So many in fact, that it rendered him entirely mute. The thoughts of a possible future collided with the teachings his father had built into him from the very beginning.

He gently pulled away from her. She didn’t blame him. Telling him that he was her moth was one thing. Explaining a relationship that involved raising children – that was another. He spent his days hunting and playfighting and loving his strange and horrific world. He still liked laughing at dumb jokes with Shift. There were still those brief pauses sometimes, where he stared up at the moon in the middle of a chilled night with her at his side and imagined what it would have been like if Angel had truly wanted him.

He wasn’t a father.

That wasn’t him. It was some version of him so far removed that there was no point in equating the two. This was Shift’s Connor, some man that lived universes away from him. Someone that she had fallen in love with so much that her loneliness had driven her to him.

Somehow, that hurt even more.

Basic questions first. Basic questions, and then maybe Connor’d be able to understand at least something of this version of himself after.

“Demons like you can get pregnant?”

She could see the conflict in his eyes. She had expected all of this. More, in fact. The muted reaction had her gritting her teeth and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“The ones in my world can, at least.”

“How many eggs?”

“Joker, look at me. Do I look like a cockroach?”

“You’re a demon,” he pressed. “I don’t know how much of you is human and how much isn’t.”

She sighed. “Not every demon is a gross piece of slop that makes a shitty excuse for bacon and eggs like this centipede fuck over here. And humans are pretty gross themselves, y’know. They have to carry a kid around in their stomach for nine months, and then have the little bastard try to rip their way through a tiny hole that can only expand so much. And then it’s pain unlike anything else and blood fucking _everywhere._ ”

Connor’s eyes were saucers.

“Okay,” she said eventually, “maybe it’s not _that_ violent. But it’s not far off the mark.”

“Wat was it like for you?” He asked.

“I was fat and it was hard to move.”

He furrowed his brows. “It would be hard to fight, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, yeah. Can you imagine fighting with giant ass parasites sucking you dry of all your nutrients from inside you?”

He gawked.

She snorted and gently nudged his shoulder with her own. “Hey, you helped, ya little fucker.” She grimaced. “Kinda. Well, I did, and you were like, nervous about everything even kid related. You and pregnancy? Not a good mix.”

“Why was I afraid?”

“Uh, bad future things.”

His mouth flipped into a thin frown.

“It’s better you don’t know,” she sighed. “Connor, I have to tell you, I’m already broaching a lot of things that shouldn’t be broached this early. There’s a whole roster of Powers That Be that may not appreciate my existence. Telling you about my world is one thing, they have no jurisdiction over that, but tell you about something in the near future – well, if it doesn’t mess you up emotionally and completely color your actions, then it’ll certainly draw some fuckwad of a pseudo god’s ire onto us.”

“I don’t understand,” he grumbled, though in a way, he understood perfectly. There were secrets she was worried about telling him. He’d already learned far more than he wanted to with her. He was almost afraid of how much more he dared to look for. Besides, there were other, more pressing mysteries to solve.

“So… What’s so great about a baby? They’re… Small, right?” He tried to recall what little knowledge Holtz had told him of the first days. “And weak. And they make too much noise. They could attract anything.”

“Well, yeah, and they can’t fight. But that-“

“They can’t even fight!? Were yours that weak?”

“Well,” she laughed. “They were pretty strong from the get go. Got my healing, and quite a bit of your durability. Well… Future Connor’s durability.”

“Oh.” There was that pang again. Future Connor. A different person. A stronger, confident person. Someone amorphous and difficult to imagine. That eating away inside him was growing annoying. Jealousy made his teeth itch, and he didn’t like it.

His mouth was in a thin frown as he tore off another chunk of meat. “So what did they look like?”

She laughed. “They’re like, these annoying wrinkly things, two arms, two legs, all the correct number of fingers and toes – I counted – and a little upset face too. Eyes are closed at the beginning, and they cry all the time. God, one of them was colicky and it was the WORST he cried nonstop.”

She spoke so plainly, and he was still busy struggling to understand the concept of future in a more concrete way. What did he actually _feel?_ And why was it so hard for him to understand? Her eyes were on him, analyzing him, and letting the words sink in as he played with his greasy fingers. He went in for another morsel. The meat ripped away from bone, and he sat back on his haunches, watching the fire lick up into the sky.

They’d spent so much time talking about a future that she was a part of. But he’d never given it much thought. He’d never given anything much thought.

“This doesn’t really answer why you’d want one of these things,” he muttered. “Let alone however many you made.”

“It was an accident.” Her voice was soft. “Medications don’t work on me, and we weren’t as careful as we could have been. We were both just stupid kids.”

“You’re not a kid.”

“No,” she sighed, “I guess not. This you, this man, he was old enough to know better too. I guess we both were. But then it happened, we both freaked out, and I talked you through the panic attack – and I think I’m doing them a disservice here.”

Connor’s grip on the morsel had tightened until meat and grease leaked through his fingers.

She opened her mouth, then closed it. “Babies,” she finally said, “They’re like building something. Something you love. Like a relationship, but one where they’re a child and you’re taking care of ‘em and keeping ‘em safe so when they grow up they can go off and live their own lives. It’s like you get to see them grow and turn into something you can be proud of.”

Connor went quiet.

“And they’re cute, too. When they’re no longer potatoes. Usually a couple months down the line.”

“Oh.”

“Are you okay? Do you want me to stop?”

He shook his head, and ate another mouthful of food. It helped silence the turmoil in his head. “It’s just some future,” he said. “And I asked.”

“You don’t exactly look comfortable, kid.”

“It doesn’t feel real.”

“No,” she mused, and hunched in just as he did. “It wouldn’t, would it? It doesn’t feel real talking to you, you know. So we’re both kind of fish out of water here. If you want…” She moved further away from the young man that gazed so intently into the crackling fire. Her own heart panged, but she could see the discomfort, and she’d be fucked if she was going to put her own comfort above his _again._ “I could keep us further apart. Make this a little easier on the both of us.”

He blinked up at her as if pulled out of a trance. “What are you saying?”

“We don’t need to do the whole, y’know, kissing thing or cuddling thing. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable-”

“No.”

She raised an eyebrow. “No?”

With quick, reflexive movements, he followed her shuffle back until his face was so close that she could feel his breath on her mouth. Those striking eyes watched her like a hawk, and his greasy hands gripped her shoulder and sealed the two of them together in a peck of a kiss that was just as satisfying as the last time she’d really gone at it with him. She rested her face in the crook of his neck when he pulled away. A weight she hadn’t known she’d been carrying lifted off her shoulders. The two of them were silent, even when he sat back and let her try to organize her thoughts.

“Having a kid inside me that was half you made me able to eat,” she eventually said, her voice soft. “They were half human, according to my physiology. Even if you came from two vamps, joker, my body says you’re human.”

His hand clenched down on hers. “Really?”

“Really really. Holtz can saw what he likes about you, but that’s what my biology read you as.” And she figured out her mistake a few seconds too late as the Destroyer scowled and turned away from her. His hand ripped away from her as fast as he’d given it to her. It wasn’t her. But there was an unquenchable rage inside him, and it only grew the longer he sat here, unable to do anything about it.

“Hey,” she murmured. “Let’s focus on something else, okay? What do you want to do? We could hunt, or spar, or practice your swordplay-”

“My father needs to pay for what he’s done.”

“Connor, look at me.” Tugging his locks roughly in her fist, she pulled his face closer until they were staring each other in the eye. His expression was hollow and cold. She felt the faintest pangs of fear up her spine. “Kid, you know I’m with you every step of the way here – and fuck, it was _me_ he tried to kill back there, you know I hate him. But do you really think that’s such a good idea?”

“He needs to pay.”

“You love him, Connor. What are you going to do to someone you love?”

“Fight him!” He grit his teeth. “I don’t know. But there has to be consequences. There’s always consequences. He hurt you.”

“Yeah I want to burn him to ashes, dude, believe me. If I had a choice in the matter, he’d be dead as soon as I saw him.” Her eyes were hooded. “I know more than anyone what he’s capable of doing to you. But this isn’t my choice. It’s yours.”

She swallowed, hating the words she had to speak. “If I killed him, then Holtz would be dead. And if you ever forgave him, there would never be a Holtz left to forgive, ever again. And you would never forgive _yourself_ if you killed him and then later on came to care for him again. He deserves to rot for what he did to you.”

The demon prodded the seething ball with a finger. “But I know you, you crazy bumpkin. And I know it’s not within you to kill someone if it’s not for survival.”

“Holtz said that before too,” he grumbled. “That it’s not within me to kill Angel. He thinks I’m weak.”

“It’s not weakness to care about someone. You’re the good guy. And this is Holtz we’re talking about. You can’t just erase seventeen, eighteen years of work he’s done in raising you. Can you look at me with a straight face right now and tell me that you’d be able to kill him?”

“I could.” He did look her in the eye, but spite and bravado quickly mellowed into confusion and fear that he hated. His mouth set in an even deep frown, he looked away.

“And could you live with yourself afterwards?”

“I… I don’t know.”

She stroked his cheek, then kissed him, just a soft, light thing. His hands found her hair. When she pulled away, he was reluctant to let her go.

“And that’s okay.”

“I can’t let him go,” he murmured.

“If you want to hunt him, you can. But be prepared if you can’t kill him. Because it’s okay if you can’t.”

“If he’s still alive, he’ll be able to hurt you again,” he argued. “You aren’t safe.”

“I won’t let him,” she said. “Never again.” Her claw-like hands clenched down tight around his arms. Haunted eyes turned to his chest. As her heart raced, her jagged shark teeth clenched down until she tasted her own blood in her mouth. The epochs-old monster was no stranger to fear. But this was just stupid. He wasn’t even that smart – she _knew_ what his goals were, this wasn’t supposed to be hard!

And yet she remembered the floating. She remembered closing her eyes expecting never to open them again. She remembered, vaguely, deciding that this would be the end. She remembered that immortal dying. And she hated it. She hated it with every fiber of her being.

He was too dangerous to keep living. But Connor didn’t need to hear that right now. And she didn’t want to think about it. All it was doing was setting her on fire.

“I’m infinitely stronger than him,” she continued defiantly. “I’m stronger than anything. I’m a fucking sun. I won’t let him do that to me. Never again. He’s not worthy to take me down.” She moved onto his lap and crossed her ankles around his waist, listening to his breath catch in his throat. It was a good sound. “But you are,” she said. His hands snaked around her waist.

“Are you hungry?” He asked, almost hopefully, and she had to hide her face against his neck. He was too cute for words. Too naïve. In between the guilt eating away at her, she couldn’t help but look forward to the day he saw the other world through her eyes. The clubs they’d invade. The vamps they’d kill. And he’d be safe. She’d have him, and he’d finally be safe.

“You just fed me,” she sighed. “I don’t want to take anymore from you. Even if I am hungry.”

“I just ate.” He leaned back to try and catch a glimpse of her face. “I feel fine. Do you ever feel full?”

“It’s not the blood that’s meant to sustain me, it’s the flesh. I’m not a vampire. In an ideal world, a lot of bodies would need to keep me going at full power. But I don’t need that to keep functioning.” He gulped, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. She licked it. “I’d never do that to you, Connor,” she soothed. “You’re too important to me.”

“And… And others, right?” He asked hesitantly. “I’m your moth, right?”

She paused in his arms.

“Yeah. Not anymore.” She swallowed as the lie spat it’s ugly self out. He took it, hook line and sinker. And she hated that he did.

Because, the truth was, she wasn’t a good person. Not even close.

And maybe the Connor she knew could take that. But this one? No. She couldn’t have that conversation with him. The inherent evil inside her that continued on in at least one of their children was something he’d never be able to swallow. And that man in that car, the first human she’d met in this world, they were dead because of her. Just on the off chance she’d need human flesh.

She hadn’t even needed it.

But he’d hit the spot. And she had been satisfied. And not once had anything about him weighed on her conscience.

And she wouldn’t have cared less if he had a family.

Yes, Connor was her moth. But it hadn’t changed anything about her. She looked at his tentative face waiting for her to nibble, and the only guilt she felt was for him. Not even now, could she bring herself to care about others the same way _he_ cared about them.

When they kissed again, she put it out of her mind. She wasn’t manipulating. She was saving him. That wasn’t entirely selfish, was it?

She latched her teeth onto his neck. The tension always killed him. His entire body shuddered and tensed whenever her teeth grazed him. But it was a gentle graze, that went straight down to his core. And he _moaned._ A soft, sweet sound as he pulled her closer and silently begged for more. Instinct in him pulled him closer and closer. He wanted this. He was confused, still uncertain, still unwilling to let his guard down, but in the end he wanted nothing else but her.

He learned how to use his tongue like she did. When her hands trailed down his shirtless body and dug in just at those hip bones, his whole body jerked in reaction. When he rubbed a finger up her uncovered spine, right at the base of her tail bone, she turned into putty in his hands and whimpered right up against his ear. It was a mixture of purring – he loved that noise – and a quiet whimper as she rocked her hips into him. The kisses lasted as long as he could breathe, and in between it was the grinding, the moans, the desperate gripping of his hands at her back. When he pulled away, her eyes were shining, her mouth open and waiting for more, panting.

He gulped, uncertain where to go from here. She took the charge, pressing her face under his chin and quietly whimpering.

“More,” she said softly, and bit down gently on his shoulder, harder this time. There were faint pricks of blood and a faint pain he’d long since begun to associate with pleasure. She lapped at the cut, pressed into his lap, grazed a tendon with her tongue, and he let out a noise he didn’t know he could make.

Shift wasn’t sure how she ended up on the ground. But she did. And Connor was towering over her, panting, pinning her hands above her hand with one of his own. She glanced down at the obvious erection, and brushed it tenderly with her knee.

“What are you going to do now?” She asked with her hair in her eyes, peering up at him. Her breath caught in her throat. The way he bit his lip, that confusion and that animal need he didn’t bother to fight against… He had her pinned. He could do whatever he wanted to her. He could be so rough he could break her pelvis. He could do anything with those hands. And she’d only fight back if it was fun.

“I don’t know.” His voice was gravelly. Even as he questioned it, his hips shivered and twitched. “We… We’re not safe here.”

“Last night, that pyre attracted plenty.” She let out a low, soft sigh. “This one probably will too.”

“Yeah,” he said. Slowly, he pulled himself away from her, and tried to think about anything else. It was painful. Those baggy pants were sagging particularly low on her hips and he could see all the way up her shirt again. It was just skin, he reminded himself. There was nothing to it. But his body heartily disagreed. He didn’t see her and think a nude body and nothing more. He saw her and wanted to run his hands all over the taught warm skin. “I don’t want to have kids anyways.”

Shift stared up at the sky with bugged out eyes, then uttered a silent, painful oath.

“You know sex doesn’t automatically equal kids, right?”

“It sounded like it does from the way you talk about it. You weren’t expecting to have them. But then it happened.”

“It took a lot of making the same mistake over and over again, to be fair.”

“But that’s the real reason for it, isn’t it? That’s the only reason you want me.”

“What?” She sat up suddenly. “No! Connor – that’s not the reason I wanted that. Not even fucking close.”

“It seems like it.”

“Fuck, joker, if I had a condom on me, I’d be throwing it at you faster than you can say what the fuck is a condom.”

“What’s a condom?”

“Keeps me from making the same mistake again.” She was moving closer and closer behind him until she brushed her lips against his shoulder. He tried hard to focus on the horizon. Holtz was somewhere down there. Somewhere. He’d have to start tracking him soon before he got too far. Things weren’t safe as long as that man was out there, and planning. Not even Connor could find peace in the thought that his father was out there anymore. He was just another obstacle. “ _I_ don’t want me knocked up, you know.”

“I’m not talking about punching you, I’m talking about making you pregnant.”

She sighed and rested her chin on his shoulder, her hands wrapping around his waist. “I care about the intimacy of being with you. I don’t want to- fuck – you’re too young, way too young.” She closed her eyes. “The you I met was in his twenties. He had a life already.” She looked away somewhat guiltily. “I didn’t want to make this complicated. It was never my intention to end up with you, you know. I just, well, I guess I kind of expected _something_ to happen. And you always made it hard, being you.”

“What do you mean, I make it hard? You’re the one that makes it hard! You… The way you smell, and the way you look…”

She flushed. “Listen. I think we’re both catnip for each other, alright?” Knocking her head up against his, she sighed knowingly. “Doesn’t matter where we come from. It’s always going to end up the same way, it seems.”

“What way is that?”

“With us being magnets.” She tugged on a lock of his hair. He gazed down at her warm smile, and couldn’t look away. “Unable to ever stop each other. I guess I shoulda known from the beginning. Or at least stopped pretending it wouldn’t end this way.”

“I like it this way,” he said quietly. “With you.”

“I don’t know if your agreeing with me actually fixes any of the questionable things I’ve done. Killing is one thing. But changing your future? Molding the way you think? Fuck, might as well be grooming you while I’m at it.” She groaned. “I don’t like thinking about this shit.”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “I think you’re thinking too hard about this.”

“I’m changing your future. I can’t afford to _not_ overthink this.”

“Then let’s talk about something else,” he said firmly.

“Fine. You got a new subject for me to worry my teeth into like a chew toy? What are we doing today?”

A faint grimace quickly left him, and his faraway expression turned once again back to the forest canopy below.

“I need to find my father.”

“Seriously? You still wanna do this?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then you already know I gotta come with you.”

“No.” The Destroyer was quick to jump on her. “He could hurt you again.”

She her lips twitched up in a deadpan snarl. “You are _not_ keeping me from beating the shit out of the man that tried to kill me. I’m not letting him get away with it.”

“But what if he tricks you again?” When he pulled her against him again and pressed his face against her chest, he could feel the steady heartbeat that always reassured him of her humanity being so much closer than an animated corpse. “I can’t find you like that. Not again.”

“It won’t happen again. I’m not some fucking damsel.” With extra care, she tucked a hair behind his ear. “Joker, on my best days, I’m unmatched. If Holtz is finally on your shit list, then count me in. I’m not letting that slimy asshole get away from me. Maybe we won’t kill him, but a knuckle sandwich might put things in perspective for him. And I have no qualms about doing a smack down on an old man. Related or not related to you.”

As much as he hated himself for it, he still flinched. Every word out of her mouth were like nails digging into his skin. A part of him cried out in protest. This was his father, it said, the one that had raised him from a babe, the one that had kept him alive in Quor’toth, the one that had taught him everything he knew.

This was just another stupid manifestation of that heroism weakness that Shift had pointed out, he knew. The Destroyer would have to prove her and Holtz wrong. He could solve this on his own. Holtz, his father, it meant nothing. The man would have to be punished. It was just. It was right. And it was exactly as the man had taught him from the moment they’d stepped into this world.

“Fine,” Connor muttered in reluctance. “But if he does anything to you, I want you to run. I’ll take care of him.”

“Joker, if something is going to happen to anyone, it’s going to me beating his ass.”

“Promise me you’ll run,” he insisted.

She sighed, then patted his shoulder.

“Run,” she said. “I gotcha.”


	17. A Hole in the Heart

The two of them prepared for the hunt with silent understanding between them. Knives were sharpened, and so was resolve. Connor looked himself in the reflection of a pool and tried to imagine the things he’d say to the man that only ever seemed to harm him these days. In some fleeting seconds, he could convince himself that he could do the worst. Moments later, he’d feel like an unrecognizable monster guilt ridden for even considering such a diabolical act. Punishment. It was such an amorphous concept. Meaningless. What would it look like? The beatings that Holtz had subjected him to? He was an old man.

He was his father.

Shift knew all too well what opening up that can of worms could lead to, and kept silent on the subject. She watched that turmoil in front of her with knitted brows. It was true, they didn’t have a plan, other than some stupid idea of punishment. She knew what _she_ wanted to do, but she would never take that away from him. This was his fight.

…

Holtz kept walking. The old hunter had made good progress on his mission to get the hell away from that godforsaken rock formation. With every step, the silent chill of defeat settled further into his bones. Around him, the forest cloaked him in shadow. Insects buzzed around his ears looking for every chance at the elderly man to falter. Not far off, the screech of a something too large for him to defend against sounded off a warning.

His son was dead. Not from the well, Holtz was no idiot, it would take more than that to kill the boy. But Steven, his Steven, was dead and gone. That boy had made his bed. He’d lain in it. At the core of the boy’s being, he was a turncoat. 

The only reason Holtz had survived Quor’toth as long as he had was the hate that vampire had instilled inside him. He’d taken every monster with the same understanding that they were just another step towards that vampire’s downfall. Every day was a day longer that Angelus thought his precious son was dead.

God help him, he didn’t know what Steven was, the boy ate like a man, but he’d never broken a bone in his body. He rarely bled, and healed from wounds meant to last months in a matter of days. In these last few years, it had been the boy that he relied on in order to secure his safety. He was loath to admit it, but this world was eating away at him. He wasn’t sure how much was time was left before Quor’toth finally claimed him.

So, what was Steven? A monster? A human? That didn’t matter. All that mattered was his strength was unmatched. And with the proper care, he could have made him into the perfect weapon. He wouldn’t have had to lift a finger. Steven would have found his own way out of Quor’toth eventually with that curiosity burning inside him – ‘Who was his father? How could he be such a monster? How could he continue to walk this earth alive while his father in Quor’toth suffered?’ Raised on enough stories, Holtz could put that rage inside the boy to make that strength singularly focused on the vampire.

And of course Steven would never be able to kill that monster that would surely love him. Holtz wasn’t stupid. He knew his boy all too well. Those nights of begging for pets and caring for creatures behind his back like he wouldn’t notice – Connor took no pleasure in the killing of the innocent.

That is why his second part of the plan would be so crucial. What made Steven so strong? What made him go against his own internal code of conduct that he had been born with and not even Holtz could strip him of?

Justice. It had always been justice. Justice, for the death of an old man who simply hid away and tried to avoid the conflict, who even encouraged the boy to enjoy his time with the vampire. That man, who would be innocent in his love and forget his age-old blood feud for the benefit of his adopted son, would be killed by the very creature Steven would think he could trust. That was the only way. And it was airtight. It was perfect, and beautiful in its simplicity. His boy was smart where it counted. He would find a suitable fate for that monster. And his friend waiting on the other side of the dimensional rift would surely help him along. Justine was a loyal soldier.

But then.

His mouth soured.

Then she had to ruin it.

That damned shebeast.

Holtz had been forced to run around her, coming up with new stories to keep his son intrigued. If not for her, his plans would have been smooth. Easy, even, though no one could really say that about a hell dimension.

Now everything had been changed, and now he was left with nothing but the remains.

Steven was never his son. He would never be the replacement Holtz sought for in a family. That is not what Steven had been for. He was a tool. And his usefulness as a tool was finally at its end. All of that wasted effort.

Holtz entertained possibilities, of course. There had to be a way he could still use the boy to his advantage. If Holtz truly wished for the boy to be back on his side, then he would have to find a way to use his sympathy and love that ran deep in order to catch that loyalty again. It wasn’t something that was simply broken by the destruction of a passing puppy love.

Certainly, Holtz had miscalculated. But his programming went deep, and Holtz knew he could tap into it again. He would have to enact that need for justice, and that loyalty that ran thicker than the water of the womb.

Let her take enough of him to show Steven the monster that she truly was. That monstrosity would finally bring his son back to him without him lifting a finger. And if that failed, play on the very thing that he knew his son wasn’t capable of.

Patricide.

It was a dangerous plan.

_‘But what if it didn’t work?’_

Holtz never questioned himself. The man couldn’t afford to. The questions rolling around in his mind were alien, and chilling. They weren’t his. He was in control here. Not her. Not his wayward tool of a son. Him.

_‘You don’t know what she is.’_

It didn’t matter. All creatures could be broken and imprisoned, if not killed. And he didn’t need to kill her. Getting Steven back, that was all he needed. They could leave her here in this cesspool to rot and go back to finally finish their fate.

_‘He chose her over you.’_

Remedial lessons would solve that. He just needed to be reminded who his father truly was. Who had raised him.

And who actually loved him.

…

Shift followed Connor with the silent padding of paws against underbrush while he jumped ahead. He’d stop periodically, scent the air, the continue with his hackles raised and his body close to the ground. This was his confrontation. He needed to lead.

The days of tracking passed, and they barely paused for food and drink and rest. He was single minded. Uncertain what he’d do when he’d get there, but he’d fucking get there like his life depended on it. This is what Holtz had trained him to become. It was child’s play to find his old and limping father.

And his nose led him right there.

Holtz was ready for it. Physically, he was just walking with his pack on his hunched back and his walking stick in hand, his knees long since taught with arthritis. The aged hunter was shrunken and mottled, with a dagger alone held aloft to keep the bugs at bay. The scars running up his face twisted in sick patterns under the dappled foliage of the forest.

The look he gave his son, when their eyes met, was heavy. The kind of look he’d given his son late at night when the boy was falling asleep to the sounds of hell, and Holtz would sit beside him, guarding the boy he loved so dearly. The kind when he’d managed his first kill. His first besting of his father. His first return from a tracking. A face he hadn’t made in so many years.

It gave the old hunter some satisfaction to see the boy hesitate before he threw himself at his own father.

The two fell to the ground in an instant. The first punch connected with him and broke the man’s nose. The second connected with his jaw and made him spit out two teeth. Holtz hacked up blood. Connor’s voice grew into a snarl. A kick to his side sent him spiraling to the ground, the next punch hit him right in the shoulder, the bad one. The crunch of bone was audible. 

As he struggled to sit up, Connor’s mouth was twisted into a crying roar. And the two fell once again. Hate and disgust bubbled up inside the boy that destroyed his father. As he threw his own father down to the ground, memories of the man’s attempted murder of the demon was spliced with memories of all the times Holtz has defended him.

This was his choice, Shift kept telling herself. He could do this on his own. He had enough people treating him like a pawn in his life. And yet the demon paced restlessly between the trees, her tail anxiously flicking between her legs. The rumbles of uncertainty left her maw unintentionally. She wanted to yell at him to finish it. To tell him to just kill the monster that had done so much evil. But she couldn’t look at Holtz without acknowledging that this was his father just as much as Angel was. And it hurt. It hurt a lot.

Somewhere inside Connor, there was guilt. Something inside him understood how _wrong_ this felt. But Connor’s sympathy was completely overshadowed by the very justice that Holtz had instilled within him. With every hit against the man that had raised him, he kept seeing her body, motionless in the water and left for dead. He saw the man that had sent him to a titan to die. The man that had refused their happy life together, the one Connor loved so dearly.

If only he had listened. If only they’d just been a family. If only. So many possibilities crushed into the dust because Holtz refused peace.

Connor stared at the bloody mess of his father, and could only see the hypocrite that hurt the only other person he cared about.

He couldn’t keep going. His fists burned, and so did his eyes, and his father wasn’t fighting back.

Holtz coughed. The punches had faded to light strikes, and then nothing at all. Finally, he had the chance to breathe. Bruised and battered, he sported a broken leg from the shove and several cracked ribs. Blood trickled from a split lip. But, much to Shift’s chagrin, he was still very much alive.

He fixed his son with the same look as before. It was unflinching. And it was driving Connor insane.

“Why did you have to do it!?” He screamed in the hunter’s face. Heaving breaths turned to ragged tears and gasping words. His bloodied hands were clenched in tight fists that couldn’t punch anything. “Why did you have to try to kill her? Why couldn’t we have worked together!?”

Holtz tried to hold his head up, then dropped it with a sigh.

“I’ve lost you, Steven,” was all he said.

“You – YOU –“ 

Shift placed a hand on the small of Connor’s back. The contact made the boy reel around with his fist raised, but then he met her gaze. The wild demon with fangs and claws for hands had never been a sight so soothing before. Only then did he feel the tears.

The hand dropped to the side uselessly.

“You can’t do it,” she said. “There’s no point. Let’s go. Leave the old man to die. He’s not worth it.”

“No!” He snarled. The Destroyer turned back around to shove the man back down by his shoulders before he could try to stand. Pain and rage danced over inexperienced eyes. He could hear his own voice crack. “I – I can do it! I can still do it! I’m not weak!”

“What are you going to do, Connor?” She begged behind him. Her hand raised to grab his shoulder, paused, then fell uselessly to her side. “The best way you can punish him is living a life that he doesn’t want you live. Walk away from this, kid. Please. Not for me, for yourself.”

“I could kill him!” He said desperately. On the ground, his father quietly watched. Connor couldn’t look him in the eye. 

She swallowed. “You can’t. And that’s okay.”

“I have to!” He cried. Rough hands fisted the collar of the man’s shirt and shoved him harder into the dirt. Connor’s shoulders were bunched, as he finally broke into sobs. “I have to. Or you’ll never be safe.”

Her heart broke. As she leaned down to his level, her hand rubbed gently into the shoulder muscles as taught as a wire. He didn’t need this. God knew he didn’t need this. And she’d never wanted this. “No,” she said. “You don’t.”

“Even now…” Holtz muttered. “My own son. Being led astray by a demon.” He turned pointedly away, his cheeks shining red and promising deep bruises riddling his body in the next few hours. “Put me out of my misery, Steven. I can’t live seeing you like this.”

“Don’t say that,” Connor snapped back. “This is your fault. You had to make me choose, father.” His grip tightened on the man’s neck as his lip curled back into a snarl, but slowly, achingly slowly, he loosened his grip, and dropped his head.

“Why did you make me choose?” The boy asked.

His voice cracked again, and Shift gritted her teeth. 

“We could have had a family!” The Destroyer gritted his teeth. “We could have been happy!”

“There was never a choice, son,” the man said bitterly. “A demon on your shoulder. You’re broken, boy. You’re broken, and I can’t fix you.” Holtz closed his eyes. “Do what you need to do to satisfy yourself.”

Connor let go of the man and clambered away like he’d been touching hot coals. The boy glanced at his own bloodied hands, and the world fell out from under him. “No… No, stop saying that! Why do you have to make this hard? You deserve to be punished! This is justice!”

“Connor,” Shift tried, then caught herself. He had enough voices in his head.

Holtz sat up slowly, and popped his broken nose back into the right shape. He remained haggard and bent, and his breath came in shallow pants. “This is obsession, son,” he clarified in his ragged voice. “Not justice. So many years of my teachings, and yet here we are. Your parentage, your father, it’s clouded your judgement far past what I can repair.” His mouth was pained. “I don’t want to believe you’re lost,” he continued, “But this damned creature - Not even my nurture could bring you into the light now.”

Holtz flicked his eyes to Shift, and her hackles rose.

Connor’s fight. Not hers. Not even if she wanted to punt that fucker’s head off right then and there and let this farce be over. Holtz should have died the moment she’d seen him.

These were the consequences of not rescuing the boy sooner.

The hunter’s movements brought Connor on the defensive. Carefully, he kept his body in between her and the man that had tried to kill her. “You’re wrong,” he said hesitantly. “She’s not the monster you think she is.”

The old hunter scoffed. “What do you call something that turns you against your own father? Is she attractive to you, Steven? Do you like that she calls you by that damned name? Do you find her demonic attributes appealing? What divides your attention away from everything we’ve worked for?”

Holtz spat out more blood and wiped his mouth. “No matter. My son died the moment he jumped down that well and risked his own life for a monster. I am wasting my breath here.” He looked to the boy, resigned. “Kill me, Connor. Do what’s in your blood.”

“No,” Connor said, taking a step back. It ran deep, those lines of loyalty. And Holtz pulled on them like a masterful puppeteer.

“Do it. I can’t live in a world that makes my son into this.”

“Stop it,” Connor begged.

Holtz smiled that same, sad little smile, and Connor gulped. Holtz was a mess, and it was his fault. His fists that caused those breaks, the blood that soaked the undergrowth beneath him. 

So long ago, he’d learned what kind of damage he could do to the people he cared about. Now, he was doing the thing that he had promised to never do. He was hurting his dad. Because he wasn’t thinking. Wasn’t listening.

His hands slowly, reluctantly, dropped to his sides.

He was everything that Holtz and Shift had said he was. He was weak. He couldn’t do this.

“Now, you see,” Holtz said. “You can’t even grant me that.” He got up slowly on his good leg, using his walking stick to keep himself steady. “Connor.”

“My name is Steven,” he tried to say.

“Is it, boy?” He shook his weary head. “I loved you. I named you a real name. I gave you everything. And now…” Holtz tried to take a step forward, then stumbled, and Shift lurched forward to catch Connor’s arm before he could go after him.

“Connor, we should go,” she hissed. “I told you it would be okay if you couldn’t do it. But he’s doing things to your head again.”

“No!” Connor tore away from her, bristling as he did. “I – I can’t!”

“And you.” The hunter turned his attentions on her, those beady eyes staring deep into her charred soul.

“Don’t talk to her,” Connor snapped back in a snarl.

“I wonder, if you’ve told him yet, about that bloodlust inside you,” the old man rasped. “You might have him fooled. But I can see it in your eyes. You’re every bit the monster that Angelus was. The only difference, you’re better at lying. What do you like, I wonder? Do you enjoy the taking of innocence from my son? What is it that drives you to commit to this role of yours?”

Her lips curled into a snarl.

He could see the spring that was her body, preparing to pounce, nervous and afraid, and relished it. Connor was watching the two of them closely, with his hand on his sword. It was perfect. Exactly as planned. All it would take were a few more well-placed jabs to show the boy the truth of the monster he bedded.

“How old are you?” Holtz’s voice was chilling. “If you’re going to kill me, at least tell me that. How much of a cradle robber are you?”

“Five thousand, four hundred and twenty-seven.”

Silence filled the forest.

“Ancient,” Holtz finally rasped. “Just as well. I suppose I never stood a chance against you. You’d always be one step above me. Does it feel good to you, separating a father from his son like this? Does it-“

“Shut up.” She muttered. She dropped her hand from Connor and curled it into a fist.

“Excuse me?”

“Just shut up for once.”

“Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.” Holtz stumbled closer and waited for the monster to shy away from him. “What did you say, wench?”

She shook her head. “Every story I’ve ever heard about you. You never stop talking. That’s all you are in the end. A series of words that convince someone in one direction or the other.”

Her mouth widened into a snarl. “So, you heard me,” she hissed. “I know you fucking heard me, you pitiable shit stain of a memory.” She stood up a little straighter, stretched out her back, and ran a hand through ragged hair. As she shook off that fear like dust, it was Holtz that took a step back, not her. “If all you are is a bunch of words, then shut the fuck up. Or I’ll make you. Do you understand the concept of not talking, you hairless pissant weasel fuck? Are you afraid of not talking, because you know how weak you are when people don’t listen?”

“So old, and yet such a child,” the hunter rasped a chuckle. “What is this supposed to be? All you’re doing is proving you are exactly what I say you are.” Connor kept flinching forward at their close proximity. His sword had been pulled from its sheath now, and his shoulders remained tensed.

“Shift, you shouldn’t –“

“I’m done being afraid, joker.” Her luminous red eyes never left the man in front of her. She stalked around the old hunter that kept craning his neck to keep her in his sights. The voice in her head was so quiet now. Drowned out by the roaring of blood in her ears. The Destroyer’s blood.

She wasn’t a manipulator. She wasn’t Holtz. She was a warrior, just like Connor. Eighteen years of complicated back and forth, and now she was struggling to spurn the simplicity of violence. It was just talk, she kept reminding herself. She wouldn’t do anything else. She just needed to speak her mind.

Connor’s teeth were gritted. He watched her with his grip tight on the blade, uncertain where to aim it. His throat bobbed; tear tracts stained down his face.

“So you’d prefer me silent in my dying moments. You wouldn’t even have me say goodbye to my son before you kill me like an old dog. And you, boy.” The man sighed a heavy, gasping noise. “You’d just allow this to happen, wouldn’t you?” 

“Father…” Shift waited for Connor to say something, anything, to pull her out of it. But he had nothing left to say. The scared, confused boy that had been pulled every which way was just standing there and waiting for the other foot to drop.

She let out a hiss.

“Man, I’m sick of this,” she snapped. “When I showed up, you know what I was expecting? Connor here, confused and in need of a friend. And you just wanna play these games all the fucking time. Not just messing with his head, but _mine_. I HATE games. You know, I may eat people, but at least I know they’re people. Not toys.” Stalking around the hunter, her shoulders were wide and low. She had him backing up, finally. Right up against a tree. Finally afraid.

“Steven was never a toy,” he said sharply. “You’re the one treating him as such. He’s my son, and you’ve taken him from me.”

“Fat fucking chance. I’m not your son, so stop pretending I’ll swallow the same story. I know the big picture, and I know what your plans are.” She stopped suddenly and slammed her arm into a nearby tree. Her claws dug into the acidic pulp, but not even that burn could quench the rage. When she pulled it back out, her eyes were living coals. “Don’t lie to me, Holtz. It’s bad practice when I know more truth than you ever will.”

“Do you enjoy playing with your food?” He rasped.

“Maybe a little. You just - you make it so easy!” She choked out a harsh, humorless laugh. “All you do is talk.”

“Are you trying to goad me? I have nothing left to say to you.”

She grabbed the man by the jaw and slammed him against the thick trunk of a tree so hard that it groaned in protest. Connor hadn’t even seen her move. And the old hunter didn’t react, didn’t even fight back. His head was held aloft as prideful as it ever was, those beady eyes egging her on amongst the brittle shards of the wood framing him. There were splinters digging into his flesh, and he said nothing. She could feel it. He wanted this.

From behind them, Connor ran up and lay the sword at the back of the demon’s neck. The resigned acceptance he’d wanted to feel was gone. All that was left was a swiftly beating heart and gritted teeth. The cold metal kissed her skin, trembling and weak.

“Let him go, Shift.”

“It’ll just happen all over again, joker,” she muttered. The delirious rage was intoxicating. This could all be over, if she just ended it herself. That would make things so much easier. “Over and over and over. And you’ll suffer. And die.”

“This isn’t your choice,” his voice wavered. He willed his grip on the sword tighter, his confidence stronger. “It’s mine. You said I could choose.”

“Choose, and you’ll always pick the option that kills you.” Her head dropped. When she turned back to him, her eyes were smoking, and her smile was broken mess. “How can I let you decide something that was never really a choice at all?”

His heart dropped, and he held out his free hand to stop her. “Please-“

“Don’t,” she begged, and turned away, shrugging off that touch. “Let me do this for you. Let me end this. You can’t do it, joker. So I will.”

The Destroyer couldn’t find it within himself to swing, not in either direction. Holtz’s beady eyes simply watched, his hands clinging to Shift’s grip with all the strength of an old man unused to conflict. There were no tricks up his father’s sleeve, he was just… Nothing. And it didn’t make any sense. His father would never let himself get wrapped up in this. Not like this.

“Dad,” he said, turning helplessly to Holtz. “Dad, do something. Tell her to stop. Please.”

He was ignored. The old hunter only had eyes for the demon, and that’s who he watched. Not the boy that was as confused as he’d ever been, begging for this conflict to be over, but the monster he refused to believe had bested him.

His mouth was stone.

“You made me afraid,” she muttered to the man. “A human. I almost have to hand it to you, you’re a greater enemy than I ever expected. Not because you’re strong. No, you’re weak, and it’s no wonder you were never able to kill Angel. It’s because you’re smart.”

Holtz’s eyes were steel. She wouldn’t do it. She was stalling for time. Connor was just behind her, his eyes wide with fear and confusion, and she was merely bluffing. She was going to let him go. For a demon thousands of years old, she was a weakling, thinking that he would ever believe her in this façade of brutal showmanship.

Holtz needed that final push. Just one more push, and his plan would be complete.

“You wouldn’t,” he choked.

She snarled, revealing the rows and rows of shark teeth. “Holtz, I’m not stalling. I’m savoring.”

“A demon as old and as powerful as you, afraid of me? You’d be ruining your chances with Connor. You’d be breaking everything you’ve worked toward with him. You’d be just as bad as me.”

“Correction. I’m worse.”

“Shift-” Connor started, but he never got to finish his sentence.

Connor saw it in flashes, agonizingly slow. In one moment, Shift’s teeth were visible, sharp and white and terrifying, opening wide for the man that watched with such silent resignation in front of her. The next, they were dug into his neck, stained red with blood as they pulled and snapped at the viscera, the hide of his jacket torn with it.

There were no screams from the hunter. The look of disbelief was enough. His eyes finally stared into the shocked expression of his son with a silently open mouth. From his lips, he coughed up blood. The hands gripping the demon’s tightened, then loosened slowly, the blood from the sound dripping down between the fingers and then further to stain the dark undergrowth. The demon tore a sharp arc away from the neck, and the trachea came with it, along with a sharp spray of blood that stained her front red. The ground was awash in dark lacquer, and only then did the light leave the hunter’s eyes, and his head fall to the side.

Connor wanted to do something, but for once in his life his body refused to work the way it wanted. 

Shift threw down the body and spat out the blood. “Fuck,” she muttered. “Can’t believe I had to taste you.”

Connor swung his sword.

He didn’t his target quite right, though. The blade sunk deep into the thick of her back instead of her neck, but it certainly got her attention. The sword met with flesh and more flesh until it finally hit the bone of her spine. The demon looked back at the sword, then back to the Connor, and coughed up her own smoking, fiery blood. Only a single slice, and he’d ruptured most of her internal organs.

“I’m sorry,” she choked.

“Shut up!” he screamed. All he could see was red. Holtz’s face. The disbelief. The disloyalty. The betrayal. He tore out the blade and in the same motion turned it about in an arc that landed on what should have been her shoulder, but he got her arm instead as she managed to leap back in time, stumbling between tree and stone. Her lips mouthed in silent words that he could never hope to hear over the roar of blood in his eardrums. The anger surged, and with that rage was the utter grief, the shock that he didn’t know how to express any other way. 

He followed her through the wood with a roar of broken hate. She wasn’t getting far with that first slice; she could withstand the debilitating pain, what she couldn’t were her intestines hanging out of her own body. Though his motions were shaky at best in his grief, he easily met her shambling form, and rent down another volley of cuts. She blocked one hit with her hand, and the sword dug deep into the flesh. She grit her teeth against the pain. More words he couldn’t hear. More words that wouldn’t bring back his father.

She turned, another arc caught her in the back rendering her nearly halved, and she finally went down, hard, against the cold, bloodstained dirty. Above her, the Destroyer was heaving breaths. He couldn’t afford to care about the shock in her eyes. Not now.

Justice. Was that what this was? What was anything, anymore? His father was dead, and his murderer was bleeding and burning before his very eyes. In seconds, she’d heal again. What was it that would kill her? What would make her dead, for good? She’d told him. She’d trusted him.

With rough, ragged movements, more slashes than cuts, he tore. Just like Holtz, she didn’t scream. Only the Destroyer seemed to know what was horrific anymore.

Moments later, he held aloft the still-beating heart like a sickly trophy. It was too pitifully small to be in control of such a beast. But as he looked down, Shift stared up with glassy eyes that looked past him, her head too heavy for her to tilt up. Her eyes were the only things still smoking. The rest of her, blood and gore, spilled out onto the forest floor and onto his shoes. There were no flames. No life. She had been telling the truth.

He couldn’t feel his hands anymore, numb and gripping the handle of the sword like a vice. The overwhelming metallic scent was tainting his sensitive nose. Everywhere he looked, there was red. Behind him, Holtz was still there. The body of the old man was a rag doll tossed to the side, and now she was the same.

Connor didn’t feel any better.

The boy looked down at her and was lost.

“My name is Steven,” he said to the corpse. The lie felt bitter, even to his lips. So desperately, he clung to the façade. It had sounded so good, long ago. “Not Connor.” His throat clenched up. He could barely recognize the sound of his own voice.

Connor wiped the tears from his eyes.

“Steven,” he said again.

He chose to bury his father before he took off running.


	18. Rot

Blank, dull red eyes stared at the sky as time passed. Moments passed like eons. The cloud floated by overhead in arcs, the hot sun shifted over the sky, and then, thousands of years later, it lowered, and the horizon grew awash in reds and oranges. Soon, the darkness of dusk rested like a blanket over the forest. Different noises signaled different creatures, those suited well to the night and on the hunt for what scraps they could find of the hell dimension.

And here there was, a perfectly good demon, lying there and unable to do anything other than watch.

Shift couldn’t open her mouth. She couldn’t turn her head from side to side. She could barely make a noise, lift a pinky, blink the dust out of her eyes. She could feel the blood no longer pumping, but flowing out, slowly coagulating into a thick, grotesque puddle around her. There it sat inert, neither decomposing nor healing. She could feel the chill of her own organs out for the night air to grab hold of. The pain was unending, a body unable to die but aching for the end.

And she could feel, with great intensity, the beetles that had begun to burrow inside her to look for the scraps of an as of yet unclaimed kill. Their sharp, feathered legs dug into the soft flesh of her stomach. Eventually, they reached passed nerve endings, and she could only feel the dull pain of something burrowing deep inside her chest cavity.

Until this point, she had sworn that the worst thing she’d ever experienced was the drowning. But now she’d realized there were worse things. Far worse things.

Like the monstrosities that lurked in the night, sniffing out the free meal and approaching with hungry maws. Her un-decaying corpse was an easy meal, and they gorged themselves. She didn’t need to look down to feel what they were doing to her bottom half. The tearing flesh was nothing new to her, but that didn’t mean it didn’t _hurt._ Dull fangs ripped skin, dug into muscle and pulled until tendons severed and snapped. And then there was nothing left for her to feel. When they were full, they left her alone for the next group to find her.

And they came. Through the days and days, they came for her.

Nothing would stop the inquisitive pack-like beasts that found her. No growling, the weak noise that it was. Nor would the sharp movements of her eyes, or the flaring of her nostrils. The movement only seemed to draw yet more attention. The teeth dug into her face, and crunched cheek bones beneath the thin coating of flesh.

Soon, she was a picked over carcass with shambles of a head intact. Her heart, probably eaten. Without it whole and full, and still beating, she would remain a doll, left to become a skeleton that only understood the concept of life without experiencing it. They would continue to feast, until she was nothing but bones. One day she’d no longer feel anything at all. One day she wouldn’t be able to see. One day there would only be the charred remnants of her soul tied to the bones in this forest, forgotten.

The still good eye looked up at the night sky and smoked tears. Unable to die. Unable to lose consciousness. Unable to do anything but think of how stupid she’d been. So many things had gone wrong because it was her fault. Selfish selflessness had finally gotten the better of her.

Though her mind was hazy, she could still remember faces. Smiling, happy faces. She’d never see them again. She’d never see _him_ again.

What must her Connor have been up to, right then? Did he know she was gone? Was he looking for her? Or was there some copy of her somewhere in that world, pretending like she was never gone in the first place? Maybe that version of her was holding her children close and telling them a story, or teaching them how to hunt. It sounded so warm. And so very far away.

Shift was tired. Tired, and hungry. The skull was bleached from the sun, and the remaining bloodshot eyeball was closed beneath the shards of skin that had once been the lid. She didn’t want to see anymore, if she could help it. She didn’t want to think, either. Thinking was counterintuitive. It just made this worse. Torture was enough for her with the pain, and the echoing hunger deep inside that ached desperately for blood. She didn’t need to agonize over her own thoughts, too.

Yet, she always lost, in the end. Solitary was like that. Weeks pass, and you end up thinking, though you wish you wouldn’t. And sleep does not come so easily to a creature not meant to sleep.

She could live with the Destroyer hating her, she thought, as her mind wandered. They’d spent most of his life with him hating her. It made things easier, this way. There would be no reason for him to hate Angel, now that there wasn’t that little whispering baba yaga fuck in his ear. In the very end, she’d fixed something, at least. And that was good enough for her.

But late at night she watched the moon hung high in the sky and could almost feel the heat of his familiar presence against her back. An imaginary, ridiculous notion. She knew full well her back was merely ragged clothing and insect larva amidst skin and tissue. But she liked to close her eyes sometimes and imagine a world where she hadn’t messed everything up.

She imagined what he was doing right now. Breaking something - himself probably - if the future she knew was anything to go by. Something she was supposed to prevent. History was once again repeating itself, as though Jasmine was fully aware of what her presence would mean for her little game of playing with humanity.

‘ _That’s right,_ ’ she noted dully. After all the fun and games and tricks of the mind, she’d almost come to believe that the world was fighting fair. But it never was. There were probably Gods calling for her head from the beginning. She was an outlier not meant to exist, and it directly fucked with the future for a particularly nasty Power That Be. Not that this was an excuse, if she was being fucking honest here. She’d fucked up, hard. If he offed himself now, she’d call this the worst fuckup in history.

If she had a mouth, she’d smile. Because they’d long since passed that mark. It was peaceful here, at the bottom of the bottomless well.

…

First, the destroyer threw up. Then he let his fists find whatever they could. Beasts were drawn to the outburst like a moth to a flame, and he tore and ripped and killed with all the rage of a monster. Systematic death followed the Destroyer’s form through the forest until he met the base of a cliff and turned to see there was nothing left to fight anymore. It meant nothing. The joyless kills couldn’t fill the void of pure despair bubbling up from the young boy who’d spent so much of his life in simple understanding.

Because at the end of the day, there was no one left to talk to.

Surrounded by the dead carcasses of creatures ten times his size, his back up against a sheer rock face, the sun setting in front of him, he stared down at his own bloodied hands. The spot he’d chosen to stay was an overhang. Above him, the shrieks of moth creatures were the only thing tying him to this world. He remained coiled, and ready for more, even if the rest of him screamed at him to rest. Night fell, and he could hear the screeches of creatures in the endless forest ahead of him. They’d smell the blood. They’d smell him and know not to come any closer. The smart ones, at least. The stupid ones, he’d break into nothing.

He turned back to his hands.

It wasn’t pain anymore. It was soullessness. A never-ending hole inside his heart, torturous and constant.

And no amount of violence was making it better.

What was he supposed to do now?

What was the right choice?

Who was he supposed to follow now?

He held himself close and watched the moon rise. As the silver light illuminated the forest around him in odd angles and shone down on the devastation he’d left in his path, he looked on with numb helplessness. Never before had he imagined he would as the only one left in this world. But now, the reality was warping his own thoughts. His mind was ruins.

Holtz was dead.

His hands shook.

Holtz was dead, and he’d done everything in his power to avenge him. Because Shift was dead too.

Shift, who had held him, and loved him, and trusted him enough to tell her exactly how to kill her. Shift, who had saved his life, and who’s life he’d saved. Shift, who’d kissed him, and fed from him, and smiled at him with a knowing twinkle in her eyes.

Shift, who was every bit the monster that his father had warned him she was.

He replayed that moment in his mind over and over again. Hours after he’d buried his father under a cairn of rocks and left the grisly scene, hours after the moon had risen and fallen for the sun, he was still sitting in the same spot and imagining those last few seconds. He wanted answers. He wanted sense. Order. Punishment. Justice.

He kept expecting his father to appear in front of him and tell him it was all some elaborate scheme to prove his trust. And Steven had failed, and Holtz was very disappointed in his son. The Destroyer would take that disappointment, and the punishment that might follow, over anything else in this world. He would kill whatever he needed to hear his father call his name again.

The tiniest part of him knew that she did it for him.

The tiniest part of him knew he should have loved her for ending it. The boy was no fool. He’d never been a fool, only trusting. Loving. But now that he was reduced to ashes and had no one left to love, he had never felt so hollow and directionless.

Was it really as his father had said? Had she really just pulled him in the opposite direction? Was this all a manipulation too? Had it all been a lie? What was even real anymore? Every time she’d brought his hopes with the possibilities of the future, the wondrous confusion of knowing that something came after Angel and Quor’toth, was that just a game to her? All this time, this is what she wanted, isn’t it? She was the evil one, right?

He pressed his fingers to his neck and remembered the lips and teeth.

Sleep didn’t come easy. Especially since he couldn’t seem to move. The first few days, he was catatonic, staring into the forest with furrowed brows as though the poisoned leaves themselves held answers he didn’t have. His throat ached for water. His stomach growled, a feeling he knew all too well. But he wouldn’t move. He couldn’t.

Eventually, he closed his eyes, and curled up against his little flat patch of earth. He just wanted to hide, and for once, pretend that Quor’toth didn’t exist.

Connor grieved. For days longer, he slept, and he grieved. And when he had the energy to move, just enough, he pulled from his pocket the still beating heart, and he held it tight. It was hot to the touch. It had dried from the air, but it was alive, and it pumped nothingness slow and steady. He kept it against his chest as he lay on his side and watched Quor’toth pass by without him. The feeling of constant movement distracted him enough that he could sleep soundly for a few hours at a time. About the size of his fist, he kept it like a cherished jewel.

Sometimes, his exhausted eyes would open, stare down at that reliable battery. He wondered why he kept it, but really, he knew the answer. And in the end, the exhaustion would hit him once again, and he’d sleep soundly once more.

It wasn’t the same, though. It wasn’t her.

It wasn’t her.

…

One month came and went.

Connor stood over the fifty feet foot bug creature he’d torn to pieces with his sword, then he sheathed his weapon haphazardly and pulled his butchering knife out. The atrophied muscles from starvation were finally coming back around, and his arms bulged at the effort it took to get through the chiton.

He ate the meat from this creature raw. Each piece, the consistency of fish, dripped with a sickly green liquid between the spines and stained his tattered hide shirt. He was trying to be neater these days, not wanting to replace things anymore than he had to, but there was no avoiding it with a demon like this. At least it tasted alright. The poison within it numbed his tongue, but didn’t harm him.

He crouched over the creature’s corpse as he ate, but though his back was bare and ripe for attack, he kept his senses focused on everything else around him. Not creature would be sneaking up on the Destroyer any time soon, not even if they had a death wish.

Though, Connor had found the world relatively quiet in recent weeks. He had even less mercy than before for Quor’toth’s aberrations, and they seemed to sense it on the wind. He was unbothered, with only the occasional titan on the horizon to avoid.

The silence was medicine for an addled mind.

As the Destroyer rose to his feet and surveyed the thick forest, his hand fell reflexively to the large pocket at his side, beside his blade. Within it, the comforting beat of the disembodied heart was as stable as it had ever been. As his hand stroked over the ruddy brown thing, tracing veins and aorta, he let out a small breath, and started walking again.

His steps moved in time with its rhythm, growing ever so slightly faster as he approached, then passed the large stack of stones with the weaved cross nestled on top. He paused by it, his hand gripping the heart tighter as his eyes trailed over the rocks. There was silence in the forest as he stood there, a minute, then two, as though Quor’toth itself would care enough to show respect for the one human that had lived and died there.

Connor’s throat tightened. Deep breaths. Feel the heartbeats. Both of them. Hold it close, and wait for the confusion to stop. Wait for the fear, the hate, and the loneliness to subside.

And there it went.

If he stopped thinking about it, sometimes it didn’t hurt as much. When he killed whatever he could get his hands on, it didn’t hurt as much. When he allowed the rage to guide his blows in the brief moments of unbridled rage mingling with dread and grief, it didn’t hurt as much. But everything reminded him of his father. Everywhere he looked, Quor’toth itself would remind him of the man that had raised him. Sometimes, he’d find a way out of the fog and back down the path of learning to live with it. Other times…

It had taken a month for a reason.

He traced his steps, and eventually he caught the familiar scent on the wind. In between trees, he stalked, following his nose as his heart beat out of his chest. Reluctance pulled at him, begging him to leave, to complete the task his father had given him. But the heart beat confidently in his hand. With every tremble, he could feel his own throat tighten, and memories tug at the tendrils of his sanity.

The corpse’s eye was closed. The other one no longer existed. But that didn’t matter much to the corpse, who no longer wanted to see the world that she would rather let fade away into nothing. Sleep would no longer come to the creature that hadn’t been fed in far too long.

Beneath the eyelid, the eye waggled from side to side, the only part that could move anymore. The skull’s maw remained open, all skin and muscle tissue gone, and yet craving so desperately for blood and flesh to pass through those bony lips. The hunger pains had turned into desperate, agonizing waves that spasmed through a body half in phantom pains. There was so little left to hurt, and yet hurt it did. Rippling through the legs with so little meat, up to the ripped apart entrails and the larva still oozing out of the chest cavity, up into the barren trachea that was still trying to swallow.

The corpse barely registered the sound of footfalls, the hunger was so great. It would be no different, it concluded, from any other creature that had already fed. Perhaps this one wanted bone, too. Then all of her would be gone. Where would she be then, she wondered? What would be left of her?

But then those footsteps stopped by the remnants of an ear, and Connor spoke.

“Shift.”

The pink eye opened, and looked up at the face of the Destroyer.

He was still. Connor had seen death. He had seen all that Quor’toth had to offer for god’s sake, he _knew_ what it was capable of. But it wasn’t capable of this. Because this wasn’t Shift anymore. This was a dead thing. It was only half there, a mess of bones and pieces of flesh and ripped clothing and matted hair. And the _face._ The face was a skull stained red and yellow. The flesh and muscle clung to the cheeks in some places, but in others it had been ripped away. There was no nose. The skull’s mouth hung open in a silent scream. And the eye, the faintly smoking, dull eye, it stared into his soul. It was supposed to be dead. But Shift remained in stasis, even as her body refused to knit itself back together.

He gripped the heart so tight he nearly broke it in half.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered. He kept stopping himself, searching for words he’d practiced that were lost now. He settled for falling to his knees beside her and tenderly gripping her skull in his hands, sweeping aside any larva that had continued to make their home there. They fell in sloughed heaps where he pushed them off. “I’m sorry I left you.”

The corpse couldn’t respond, of course. It just continued to stare at him with that intense eye that made him all the more guilty.

He gripped her tighter and grew silent, uncertain what could even be said. He had come here for her. But that eye… That eye judged him. It looked into his soul and told him she’d left him here. He couldn’t continued to look straight at her, not with an expression like that.

“If you attack me,” he began, then stopped himself, and swallowed. “If you attack me, I’ll take it out again. I…” The words were foreign on his tongue. “I’m not here to fight.”

He didn’t stop to wait for the eye to look at him any longer. There would be no answer, so he’d might as well get it over with.

Connor pulled the heart from his pocket, then pushed it into what was left of her chest cavity.

The creature that had been on the brink of death and starved for weeks died in his arms died the instant he placed the organ back in its place. All tension that might have remained in the body left, and then he was truly holding a corpse. He held her there in confusion, watching the blank, dead expression, but seconds later he pulled away sharply as he realized what was about to come.

Ducking and rolling for cover, he had only seconds left to find security behind a boulder before the world erupted in fire. As they dissipated, the bloodthirsty monster left in its place snarled with its sightless eyes directly on the hiding spot that Connor had taken refuge.

Connor tore out his sword and gripped it tight. He didn’t have anymore time to prepare before the monster was upon him, tackling him up against the rock and wrenching that blade out of his hand before he could get the chance to swing it. The fully formed demon, wings and horns and all, bore down upon him with fangs peeled back in a snarl that dripped with saliva. His body pinned against the stone with his arms held by her own iron grip, he could do little more but stare with gritted teeth at his resurrection. Shift’s sightless gaze inched closer, the massive fangs grazing his throat. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. His free hand was on the pommel of the dagger at his hip. He could do it again, if he just had a second to pinpoint where to strike-

She pressed the gentlest of kisses to his neck.

That burst of energy was all the demon had left in her. Her grip weakened, and then she collapsed in front of him. The wings disappeared to ash before she even hit the ground, too weak from hunger to move. She tried to lift her head as he approached her again, but couldn’t, and instead watched him approach her with all the hesitance of a wild animal.

He crouched down in front of her and pulled her head into his lap as he pushed his arm to her mouth. The young man’s face was grim as he used her teeth to pierce his own arm. She didn’t even have the strength to bite down. It was up to him to pinch his flesh to drive the blood out of his veins and down the demon’s gullet. The swallows, shallow at first, grew deeper the more she drank. Soon enough, she had the energy to lift her hands up to his arm and pull it closer.

She watched him quietly as she drank. He was looking at her with those cold blue eyes, a dark and quiet expression that was far away from her. The month had not been kind to him. His face was gaunt, and his chapped lips were scabbed from old blood. His hair, lank and dark. Pulling away, she tried to speak, but he forced the arm back up against her mouth.

“Connor.” She sounded like a ghost, the voice barely more than a whisper.

“You need to feed,” he muttered earnestly. “Do it. I can take it. I ate before I found you.”

She didn’t argue. The fangs sunk deep into Connor’s arm and drank with a much rougher vigor than the boy was used to. The Destroyer winced, and turned away, his bile rising briefly before he got control of himself again.

Shift pulled away when she finally had the willpower to do so. He was pale when her lips finally kissed the wound and let it lie. The arm dropped, and she stared up at him from his lap. Both of them grim, they watched each other in silence before either of them bothered to try and cut the tension neither wanted to touch.

“We shouldn’t stay here,” he eventually muttered, startling the demon. “It’s not safe.”

“You got someplace safe?”

“A cliff overhang. Northeast, two hours walk. If we start now, we’ll make it by nightfall. Can you walk?”

Dumbfounded, she nodded. “… Yeah. I can. But…”

“I didn’t come here to talk,” he said quietly. As she struggled to her feet, he flew up and went over to grab his sword.

“What did you come here to do, then?” As she rubbed the arms and legs that had been missing for so long, she kept an eye on the Destroyer as he analyzed his weapon before sheathing it. He paused at her words, and turned to face her, silent and making her more uneasy than ever.

“The heart wasn’t enough anymore,” he said.

“What is that supposed to mean?” She asked, but he’d already started his trek back the way he’d come.

As they walked, Shift found her way up beside him. He kept his gaze ahead, but she kept stealing glances at him. Every look was another checking on his health. No scars that she could see, but his face was thinner, colder. Weeks, she reminded herself, weeks of him alone in this world. She knew firsthand what that felt like. But he was young and all of this was new. She couldn’t imagine how this could affect someone as fragile as Connor. As strong as he was, he was a porcelain doll too.

Her eyes strayed to his hand, and her own clenched in a fist.

“Do you hate me?” She asked.

“I…” His voice went quiet. “I don’t think so.”

“Do you want to kill me?”

“No! No.”

She let out a soft breath. “Then why am I here?”

“I need you.”

“For what, Connor? Bait?”

“No,” he growled. Turning around on his heels, he grabbed her by the shoulder and gripped her tight. “The heart-“

  
“Yeah, you’re being really fucking cryptic for someone that hates reading between the lines as much as I do.” She gritted her teeth. “Just fucking say something, alright? Are we okay? What do you want me to do? What do I need to do?”

He hugged her so tightly that a rib cracked. She choked out in surprise and pain, but a moment later she was hugging him back just as tightly. Burying her face in his neck, she clasped around his broader form like her life depended on it.

Connor’s hands shook as he held her close. He could still hear that familiar heartbeat, but now it was so much stronger. There was the smell he’d missed, the enveloping feeling that was like nothing else. He couldn’t forget what she meant. But he couldn’t help but enjoy this, either.

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” he admitted, the voice full of doubt. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I’m not going to answer those questions for you,” she muttered. He tried to argue, but she gripped his shoulders and shook her head. “Connor, you’ll get enough of that in the future. Fuck, you’ve got enough of that now. If you want to hate me, then you can hate me. If you want to forgive me, I’m alright with that too. Whatever the fuck happens, it’s up to you now where you want to run with this. Not me.” 

His voice was bitter. “I don’t like it. I hate the way you make me think. I couldn’t live – not alone. Not without someone. But I can’t forgive you either.”

“You don’t need to forgive me.”

His shoulders sagged. “But I don’t want to hurt you either.”

“You could never really hurt me, Connor.” Her voice softened. Weeks of torment flashed through her mind. They’d never go away. But much like everything in her long life, she’d either have to move past it, or let it consume her. “I told you, from the very beginning. I’m here for you.”

“You ruined my life.” His hands gripped her tighter, until she was letting out a gasp of pain.

“Maybe I did. But I’d like to think I freed you for the next one. You got a lot ahead of you.” Gingerly she pulled out of his arms, and thankfully he let her. “You saved me because you didn’t want to be alone. When you get out of here, you won’t be alone. You can choose to run away, if you want. You don’t gotta stay with me.”

“No,” he said again, more sternly this time, and tried to cling to her with all the stubbornness of a man starved for affection. True fear flashed in the Destroyer’s eyes are the very idea of losing her after only just gaining her back. Words would never suffice in explaining the loneliness of grief in Quor’toth. He couldn’t do it anymore, not without her. He could never see her without seeing the monster that had killed his father, nor could he live without her. The scared and confused young man clutched onto his security blanket as tightly as he could, until the moment had passed and he’d regained his faculties again. “Don’t leave,” he begged. “Please. You’re the only one left.”

The demon’s heart panged, and she had to look down. “That’s not fair to you, joker,” she said bitterly. “I was never here to steal your allegiance.”

“I don’t care about that,” he pressed. “I just don’t want you leave.”

“Then I won’t.” She gently clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll be here as long as you need. I have to protect you, after all.” She tried to grin. It didn’t feel quite right.

When they got to the overhang he had styled into a makeshift shelter, Shift marveled as just how much he’d managed to accomplish. Still the same nomadic lifestyle that Quor’toth demanded, but the warm cavern of pelts and drying jerky with the pretty fire in the center was more inviting than she could have imagined. But more than anything, it smelled like him, and it smelled like home. Hidden behind strategically placed branches with a wooden door set into the last open crack, he was hidden away from both weather and beasts alike. As he peeled off his clothes and settled in for the night, Shift padded closer in hesitance.

But Connor didn’t have time for that. As soon as he’d found a comfortable position in between fur of white and brown, he held out his arms for her with the need in his throat tightening again, and she didn’t hesitate anymore.

They lay there together, quietly, with her head tucked against his chest. Sometimes his body tensed, like it wanted to do something. Attack, fight, run, he wasn’t sure. But then sometimes it relaxed, and he felt nothing inside. Sometimes he wanted to yell. There was no end to the storm inside him. Holtz was still dead, and there was nowhere to vent his frustration anymore. The person that had killed him was the only other person he loved.

She didn’t make any of that go away, but he’d suspected she never would. That was his fight. What she did, was lie there with him.

At the very least, she was there when he woke up in the middle of the night with night terrors. He never told her that she was the teeth he dreamed of.


	19. When We Grieve

They didn’t talk about Holtz. If he wasn’t going to bring it up, then the fire demon sure as hell wasn’t either.

But she could feel a rift growing the longer they didn’t touch that festering wound. He needed time, of course. Weeks, months. God, years maybe. And that was okay. He didn’t need to get over it. It wasn’t something you just got over.

But she was worried.

If they kept silent, and pretended like everything was fine, then it wouldn’t be, and it would stay that way until something finally popped off the lid to that bottle of vodka. She wasn’t here for the interpersonal drama. This wasn’t a soap opera. If that was the path this was leading to, she would rather let him take whatever he needed from her and then sacrifice herself for the rest, without the messy messy getting in the way.

But she just… hated waiting, she guessed, for the other shoe to drop. And the last eighteen years had been nothing but that.

As the days went by, the two developed a quiet routine. Shift required regular feedings, even more than before to make up for weeks of starvation, and Connor acquiesced out of obligation. She was hyper aware of the flinches whenever she sunk in her teeth, or the quick pulling away as soon as she was done. Gone were the days of his wanting more. Gone was the warmth. And she deserved it.

After her own sustenance, they’d work on his. The mornings were for hunting or curing whatever they’d already caught. One would be the kiter, the other the ambusher, and it would lead to a frightening level of efficiency between the two of them. Creatures from around the area grew sparse out of fear, but they moved further and further until nothing could stand in their way. Their scent on the wind inspired fear into the hearts of the creatures of Quor’toth.

There was some satisfaction for both of them, being on the top of the food chain. Strength was something held in high regard for both of them, and the quiet respect gave the demon some hope that maybe they could bridge a gap.

The ground beneath their feet trembled when they fought against each other with everything they had in their sparring matches, each session a fight to the death for most. In the arena they carved out through their own strength, they constantly clashed with the heat of battle, egging each other on to the edge of what they were capable of. Though Connor had the upper hand in the strength and size, Shift’s speed made up for it in spades.

It was only practice, but the passion for a worthy match made the battle far more intense. And then there was the brutality that Connor fought with. He couldn’t help himself. Sometimes there would be flickers of thought crossing his mind and then suddenly he would be in another gear entirely. All he would see when he looked at her was the monster that had killed his father. It was no wonder his hits were more brutal, or his swordsmanship less forgiving. She could take it, though she didn’t encourage it. She didn’t want to be the one to contribute to accelerating his road to self-destruction, and this toxicity seemed to be veering toward that path.

To try and shake him out of it, Shift showed him techniques he’d never even dreamt of. The tantalizing prospect of learning usually brought him back to Earth. Seeing his eyes light up at the thought of learning something knew gave her hope that there was some way to bring him back. And when he laughed, that was all the better. He wasn’t gone. She refused to believe he was.

Over an open flame in front of their little hovel, they’d end the night with quiet conversation.

In the beginning, Connor didn’t talk much. He preferred to poke at the leftovers of the day’s without actively engaging. But, as all things tend to with Connor, he got bored. And with an awkward silence between the two of them, he sought to fill it. He did so with that same unquenchable curiosity, and soon enough Shift was offering him as much as she could of the world of Earth. History, food, fighting styles, civilizations, weapons, hunting techniques, she was certain those at least were safe topics. After all, this world wasn’t too far off from her own.

But she kept some things quiet. The future. Cordelia. Jasmine. The possible end of the world. The rewriting of history. Most of all, Angel. All things she had varying levels of knowledge about, but things she could never get away with advertising too much of without something going wrong, she was sure. And when he probed toward anything that she knew might lead to a certain PTB breathing down her neck, she carefully steered the conversation back to another shiny thing that Connor would jump on like a magpie. It was taxing but rewarding when he was clearly so excited to learn.

When the night encroached further on their fire, and Shift’s eyes started to grow in the moonlight, it would be Connor that decided when it was time to turn. As per the routine, he’d stand up, stretch, and with little more than a quick “g’night” and a glance at her, he’d duck back into the overhang to undress and prepare for bed. Shift would stay there just a little longer, watching the flame.

Rarely did she allow herself time to delve into the memories of their month apart. It didn’t help Connor. And she’d survived worse, she’d try to convince herself. But willing herself to believe it wasn’t that bad didn’t work when she could still recall what it felt like to be eaten alive by worms digging into her flesh. The memories would flit through her the same way that thoughts did when you actively tried to keep yourself from thinking them. And the silence, god, the silence… Being alone made her skin prickle. She couldn’t stand it. The loneliness was an aching hole, and she’d have to twist her head around just to remind herself that this wasn’t a hallucination, and that Connor really was there, waiting for her.

And then she’d join him, kicking the fire out herself and following the Destroyer not long after he retired for the night.

In the cold nights of Quor’toth Connor craved warmth, and without meaning to they’d started a habit. Connor, stripped down in his nest of skins, would wait patiently with the chill on his shoulders and the noticeable absence of a second heart to calm him. The darkness of his room would begin to encroach until memories began to bubble up from within, but they’d be gone as soon as those familiar red eyes appeared in the door frame. He’d hear the closing of the door behind her, and then she’d be shedding her own clothes and crawling in beside him.

There was no awkward nervousness between the two of them. Shift was the only one that seemed know better, and that was quickly overturned by the Destroyer’s obvious need for companionship. She wasn’t about to tell him anything; the kid was happier this way. She could absolutely keep her hands to herself. He needed this. And in the back of her mind, she noted wryly, she probably did too.

His hand on her heart, he’d pull her close, his shoulders slowly losing that tension that built up during the day, and then she’d turn around and he would slowly drift off to sleep with the touch of someone keeping his nightmares at bay. The warmth, the steady thumping he’d spent a month with, the familiar scent he’d known for so long, the touch of skin on skin, it soothed him in ways he hadn’t felt in weeks. These few moments, as he drifted off to sleep, were heaven. He forgot about everything else, and simply floated.

And Shift would stare at the other side of the overhang and wait for the morning.

Sometimes, her heart panged. Because her mind would wander, and then remembering where she was would bring with it a keening sense of homesickness that was almost overwhelming. There were children at home. Someone who loved her. Worlds away, what was that Connor doing? Did he even know she was gone? Had another version of herself replaced her?

Strength, she’d remind herself. This was for his sake. It didn’t matter which Connor was which, she had to be there for whatever version she came across. Even if he didn’t even seem to want her anymore, that wasn’t why she was here. This wasn’t a fantasy. She had already done what she needed, and this was her penance for it. Shift was resolute in ways she had never been before.

So it wasn’t her that had ended the cold war.

Sitting over a log carving through the pieces of meat from a recent hunt, Connor watched the demon build up wood for the night’s fire before setting it ablaze with her finger. Her fluid movements brought back bittersweet memories.

Nothing since they’d reunited. Not a kiss. Nothing but what had happened when he had first brought her back. He was to blame for that, he knew. Connor couldn’t help the feelings of disgust every time he looked at her fangs, let alone when she fed from him. Those same teeth that bit into his skin were the ones that had ripped open the throat of his father like he was just another animal.

But the nights were nice. He couldn’t help that. Every day, Connor was a little more lost in her eyes, and a little more forgiving to her touch. There was something his father said about time, once, and the way it heals. But he might have been remembering it wrong, because if there’s one thing that didn’t change the way his father felt about Angel, it was time.

Shift rose and stretched languidly in the dying sun, and then there was that itching sensation at the back of his neck, and no amount of scratching would solve it.

It was true that time had passed. Holtz had been dead for months now, and though it hurt, he still had someone. He wasn’t alone. But sometimes he felt like he was.

As he remembered what had led them up to this point, he allowed himself a small smile. Hunting her down with such brazen confidence, thinking every bit the terrifying monster that his father must have been afraid of. Finding her, and that satisfaction that his tracking skills had worked. Fighting her constantly, each battle more desperate and more fun than the last. Learning about her, and about strange other worlds as a consequence. All things he couldn’t help but remember fondly. And then, the titan. Her death. The snapshots of him falling through the air, and her falling after him. Those leathery wings, and those claws pulling him in close and her tearful admonishment. And then she’d kissed him.

It had been like the world had fallen out beneath him. Well, it _had_ , but he knew what he meant.

Complicated things made his head hurt. That had always been the way of it. But in that moment back then, things hadn’t been complicated. It had felt right, and that was something his father had never been able to dissuade him of. And now Holtz was gone, and he had to remind himself that she loved him, and she had done everything she could to keep him safe, even if sometimes he felt like she was the very thing he should be killing.

She’d told him to run away so many times the moments before that fateful day. He didn’t want to remember it, but in those painful times he did, he could recall her wanting to end things before they got bad. She hadn’t wanted to do it, even if she had sounded like she had. And hadn’t he been about to do it himself?

And his father had wanted to hurt her. Kill her. He couldn’t forget that.

Finding his voice was the hardest part.

“Shift.” The voice was so quiet, like he’d spoken it to himself. But the demon with the sensitive ears still poked her head up from the pit in surprise.

“’Sup.” She watched him carefully. He was still trying to parse ideas out in his head. If this was what he wanted, if he believed it was truly time to get rid of the chill between them. He was never sure anymore. But then she stood up and walked over, and he did too. As he rose up to meet her, he grabbed her arms out of reflex.

“I meant it… I meant when I said I was sorry.”

“Back in the woods, huh?” She grinned ruefully. “That was my fault, Connor. Not yours.” She tread carefully around the subject, and he knew that was his fault. He still found it grating. “You doing alright?”

“Yes. No.” He gripped her arms tight, then let out a harsh sigh and let her go. “You saved my life,” he said as he turned around to stalk like an animal hemmed in. Deliberating, ruminating, disliking the discomfort. He kicked at the carcass of the demon he’d been cleaning. “You saved me. And I saved you.”

“Ah. You don’t have to think about this if you don’t want to.” She rubbed her arm and settled back on her heels. “I mean, shit man, it’s a lot. There’s not exactly a time limit on that sort of thing. You get it when you get it.”

“I don’t like waiting around to “get” anything,” he snapped back at her. “I want to stop feeling like this. I feel like – like I’m just floating through things in a swamp haze and there’s no way to get through it. Like none of this even matters, and I can’t... Even if you’re here, I’m treating you like you’re a monster, but you’re not!”

“I am, Connor,” she said patiently.

  
“You’re not. You said what you did to my father, but you did it for me, right?” He pleaded.

“Of course I fucking did,” she said without hesitation, and took a step forward to close the gap. The distraught Destroyer stared her down. “You’re the reason I’m here. But that doesn’t mean I did the right thing back there. And that doesn’t mean the shit you’re going through right now doesn’t mean anything. You have to have the time to grieve, Connor. Holtz was a bastard to me and a father to you. And I can’t change that, as much as I might want to. You’re allowed to be upset. You’re allowed to feel like everything is complicated. You’re allowed to hate me-“

“I don’t hate you! I just don’t _want_ to feel like this anymore. I don’t want to feel like punching things when I think of you. I don’t want to you to… I don’t want to… to...”

Shift’s gaze softened. The demon pressed closer, then rested her head on his shoulder. He flinched back, but refused to separate from the touch. “Listen, I want that too,” she murmured. “But how are we gonna do that when you’re afraid of me?”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Alright, I won’t fight you on that. But there’s obviously some rift here, you’re right about that. And I don’t know how to fix it either. Is time gonna make it better? Or is yelling about it loudly enough?” She let out a bone-wrenching sigh. “I don’t know. But I miss it too, y’know. You’re not the only one.”

Slowly, Connor pulled his arms back around her, and brought her in close to his chest. That heartbeat was there again, and her hair tickled his nose. For several silent minutes, they just stood there while the fire crackled and the dead demon started attracting flies. Neither of them cared about the world around them. Connor was too busy searching for the peace he desperately needed in the warmth of the only other creature in this world not intent on killing him. And Shift, well, Shift was just happy he was holding her.

“I don’t thinking time is working,” he eventually said.

“Maybe not. You wanna scream into the void with me?”

“I don’t want to scream either… Even if I feel like yelling sometimes. I just…” He pulled away and framed her face with his hands. His own chest tightened as he looked into her eyes. Her mouth parted, and he saw her fangs. “I want to love you like you love me. Like all you did for me. I want that again.”

“Fuck, joker,” she sighed as she leaned into his hand. “You don’t gotta do that.”

“Okay, maybe I don’t gotta. But I want to.”

She didn’t expect the kiss. Widen open eyes stared back at him as he struggled to push himself further than he had in weeks. At first he was tentative. But then it was stronger as he got the confidence he didn’t know he had. He pulled away before it was anything else, and lay his head back on her shoulder, but he could still feel the tingling of her lips on his.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she murmured.

“I wanted to.”

“Still.”

“Still,” he echoed.

“Alright. How do you feel now?”

“I don’t know.” Each word was carefully enunciated, as though he still wasn’t sure.

“When do you think you will?”

“I don’t know.”

“Both equally valid answers,” she soothed. Her hands curved over the knotted muscles of his upper back and gently rubbed up to his nape. “I’ll be here when you do know.”

“Promise?” His voice was muffled up against her neck, but she could still hear the hope.

With soft eyes, she held him tighter. “Promise. Forever and always. I’ll be by your side.”


	20. La Petite Mort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sexual content incoming.

Connor never tried to fully forgive her. After all, the understanding of what she did would always be in the back of his mind. But intimacy, closeness, and an ache not to be alone is an excellent concoction for forgiveness in the name of need.

Being happy felt better than holding onto the grief. And when he was with her, he realized soon enough that he did feel that. Happy, that is. And he wanted to keep feeling happy as long as he could. It was one of the only things that got him out of the deep well Holtz’s passing had thrown him in.

Soon enough, the only part of himself that seemed to disagree was his instinct.

The sparring in their usual circle had started the way it always had. Technique, skill, the breaking of everything around them. Connor had sustained some considerable blows. Nothing broken, never broken, but he was panting and spitting out blood from the punches she’d landed on him. And just when he thought she was letting him take a breather, she knocked his legs out from under him and threw him into a tree. The hit was hard, and the light from his eyes went dull. When his expression changed, Shift realized she had taken it a step too far. She took a few steps back, began to speak, but she didn’t have the time.

She went down hard when his fist connected with her shoulder. He could actually feel the collarbone breaking apart inside her. The shards of bone stabbed the inner tissue as she cried out in pain, falling to the ground and trying to roll back up to get back at him. But he just kept wailing, pinning her to the ground with a single-minded anger. She fought back even with those broken bones grinding together, clawing tooth and nail, and tearing as he used the dagger in his boot to try the same. But when that got knocked out of his hand, he resorted to the same kind of animalistic fighting she did.

There wasn’t any strategy. It was rage, and instinct, and reaction. He pulled her hair, held her down by her jaw to keep her from biting him, but she kept coming back over and over again.

He thought it was her egging him on. She was just trying to get some defensive ground. 

Her breath came in pants in between her growls. Shift was trying to bring him back to fucking earth, but it wasn’t looking good. His eyes were alight with a strange vibrancy. He wanted to hurt. He wanted to just get the thing out of his system that both of them had so carefully worked around.

Her battle-cries had been absorbed in the hissing and yowling and attempts to wrestle him off of her. Eventually, she realized, it wasn’t going to happen.

And yet she found herself continuing to fight without care for whatever else might happen. The same energy within her was slowly beginning to trump the worry to the point that she was giving as good as she got. Brutal scratches up his back in exchange for bloody gouges in her neck, neither were thinking logically.

And… And was this so bad? This was the kind of fighting she liked best, after all. As they fought, it was so easy to delve back into old habits and old memories of their fights ending in much more fun way. It was wrong, a small part of her tried to argue. He was hurting, grieving. Who was she to take advantage of that? Who was she to let him take out his anger on another person? Wasn’t she trying to teach him the opposite?

But those were small voices. And she could take it, just this once.

In a sudden shock of movement, Connor grabbed her hands in one of his and pinned them above her head, hoping to stop her clawing; but her legs proved more powerful than anticipated as she kicked out in combination with that damned elasticity.

Something about the way she moved, the way she huffed as she fought, and the way she scratched and kicked and bit, growling under her breath – it sent shivers down his spine. There were parts of his mind lighting up that he didn’t know could be associated with each other. Even as his teeth were gritted and he was snarling as much as she was, there was something about his blood flowing and the heated intensity that made something click in his brain. That rage, that grief, that attraction, the cacophony of confusing emotions built inside him until it burst.

He bit down on her neck, and she froze as she felt the teeth sink in deep.

“Connor-“ she blurted. “Wait-”

But he didn’t wait. Those incisors sunk deep into her flesh in the heat of the moment just as she so often did to him. In the back of his mind, an instinctual thought claimed it only fair to mark the creature that dared rip and tear into him. And to mark _her,_ an even deeper part of his brain asserted.

To his surprise, those human teeth broke easily into the skin when he tried. The blood hit his mouth, and he dug further with a growl, expecting that familiar coppery taste that he was used to in himself.

What he didn’t expect was the fire.

The moment her blood touched his lips, the extreme heat shot down up his spin and down into every inch of his body. He pulled away, hacking and coughing, but a few drops had already been swallowed. The muscles in his arms and legs contracted sharply. As the liquid ran down his throat, he could have sworn it was melting his flesh and seeping through until it would eventually leak through his ribcage and rip him wide open.

The world around him was dimming to a dark cone with a white pinprick in its center, and the world around him dulled to the quiet depth of several feet underwater. In his nostrils, he could pick up the scent of Shift, but he felt nothing but pain. Every hair on arms prickled like the throes of fever. Dimly, he recognized that he was on the ground, spasming, but he wasn’t sure where. A sharp ringing in his ears slowly grew from the silence until he couldn’t hear anything else.

For what felt like hours, but was really only minutes, Connor screamed and there was nothing Shift could do about it.

His head pounding, the sounds slowly returned, and with it was a constantly nattering voice speaking in hushed tones right up against his ear. Slowly, he opened his eyes. He hadn’t even realized they’d been closed, but now they hurt from how hard he’d kept them shut.

The forest was blinding, and he realized vaguely that he was lying on his side facing the end of the clearing. When he looked down, he could see the arms clasped around him more than feel them. And the voice was still there. Soothing. Terrified.

Shift.

He turned sharply back around, but she stopped him in his tracks with a sharp grip on his shoulders.

“Jesus fucking Christ don’t _move_ dumbass,” she hissed, every word watery and hesitant. “You have any idea what you just went through? You need a chance to recover!”

“What was that?” He managed to ask. The voice that left his mouth was barren and dry and he coughed immediately afterward.

“My blood,” she said softly, squeezing his shoulder and then gently releasing. Her eyes were wide and had only just stopped smoking. “I told you before, didn’t I? My blood’s poison, joker.”

Pulling away from her and slumping back, Connor rubbed his temples gently. The initial burn had left his system, though it still idled in the back of his throat, but it was now the brutal migraine that really affected his system. He could still hear her, but every word, and indeed every sound, was punctuated with the thudding of a hammer. Concussions felt better.

“I… didn’t think it would feel like that.”

“I’m liquid fire, kid,” she soothed gently. The hand stroking his shoulder brought little comfort to the pain plaguing his head. “You can’t do shit like that. It’ll break you.”

“Will it melt me?” He turned his pained and squinting eyes to her.

“What?”

“The fire. Will it melt my insides? It felt like it was going to. Still-” he coughed again, and winced. “Still does, kind of.”

She smiled sheepishly, and gently patted his shoulder. “No.” His shoulders relaxed. “It’s just blood. But it sure as hell will fuck you up and then some.”

“Could it kill me?”

“It’s not meant to kill. It’s meant to hurt. Torture.” She pressed closer and plucked the boy’s head from his slouched position so that he would lock eyes with her. “If it would have killed you, I would never have let you get that close. Shit, even as it was… I was reckless. I’m sorry.”

“I was the one that bit you,” he said dismissively. He pulled away, still rubbing the back of his head. “It’s my fault, not yours.”

“Still a shit way to learn,” she muttered. “I shouldn’t have let you fight like that.” She shook her head. “What was going on in your head? It’s like you just checked out of the building there.”

“I was angry,” he said. But that wasn’t right, and both of them knew it. Even as the pain lingered, so did her scent in his nostrils, and the sweat from their sparring match. He still hadn’t gotten what he’d wanted. “I… I don’t know. I wanted to beat you in a fight.” His eyebrows furrowed in thought. “I… I was thinking how much I… hated what you did. But then there was this feeling pushing me. And I wanted you too. I don’t know.” He huffed, and turned away. 

Shift was grinned wryly to herself instead of responding when he turned back around.

“What’s that look for?” he questioned.

“I mean, I get it, I’m just kind of watching you go through it for the first time and thinking it’s pretty cute.”

“What even is _it_?” He retorted.

She bit her lip, and that smile disappeared. She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“The thrill of the hunt can be applied to a lot of other things to,” she explained carefully. “Sometimes wires get crossed. You see me, someone you like, and you see the need to fight. You fight me, but you- well.” She flushed darker. “Want me, right?”

  
“So this is a sex thing.”

The demon nodded and tried to appear as nonchalant as she possibly could. As she pushed off from him and sat up in the dirt, she shoved her hands in her pockets and carefully averted her eyes from the intense gaze of the Destroyer. “I mean, yeah. That’s how that can feel. When things get intense like that. Sometimes the line is blurred between fighting and sex.”

Connor encroached upon her space with his head still throbbing. The pain had somewhat dissipated, but it would be hours before he shook off the last of that poison. However, that scent wasn’t going away any time soon.

Her clothes were still torn from the fight, but so were his. The tiniest flames had already taken care of most of her wounds, but there were a few remaining. And as he moved closer and she leaned back, he could already feel the heat of battle returning.

“I don’t get it,” he muttered. With his arms planted on either side of her form, he was practically on top of her. Squinting, he tried to get the last of that blur out of his eyes.

Her throat twitched in a gulp as she slowly pulled her hands out from her pockets to brace herself in front of the looming man. “Fighting is the way you communicate best, isn’t it?” She laughed nervously. “And when it’s so close, even violence, taken out of context, becomes a kind of intimacy. We’re soldiers. You and I both know that talking about feelings is hard as fuck and neither of us even know what to say half the time. You think that relationships would work the same way for us that they would for everyone else?”

He peered reluctantly down at her and she gently tugged the ragged collar of his hide shirt. Deep gouging claw marks had torn right through the cloth in the center. Probably unsalvageable.

“I don’t know,” he muttered. “I don’t even know how relationships are supposed to work.”

“Yeah, no one does. Trust me. Humanity’s had thousands upon thousands of years, and people still don’t know what the fuck is going on.” She pulled herself up so she could kiss the tip of his nose and tried to smile. “You’re fine, Connor. Really.”

He scowled. “I still don’t get why I couldn’t control myself. I didn’t like it. I went too far. I hurt myself this time. But I was hurting you too.”

“That’s called instinct, joker. And you got it, I got it. It keeps you alive.”

“I know what instinct is, this was different.”

“That’s instinct too, pretty sure. Just the more adult, animal kind.”

The destroyer grumbled as he pulled away from her and turned around with arms crossed. “No it’s not. I’m not an animal, and I’m not a demon.”

She brushed her face against the back of his neck. “Humans can have instinct too, even the kind that pushes us to be impulsive like you were. I don’t know what it is about Quor’toth. But it does something to demons, and people. Wilds them. Darkens them. Hell knows I can feel it.”

“I don’t feel anything.”

“You’ve never felt anything different.” She brushed her lips against that tendon along the back of his neck, and his whole body went taught. A faint smile curled on her lips. “This is your hometown, kid. Your norm.”

“But you feel something.”

“I changed, when I came here.”

“How?” He risked looking in her direction. In between his headache was another ache entirely, and ignoring it wasn’t working the way it usually did. She didn’t even seem to notice, but pressing up against his back and soothingly rubbing his shoulders was doing him no favors. It was too calming, too inviting.

They’d killed every demon within a square mile. There was no titan for miles. And she _smelled_ good. There was no reason for him to be on his guard. And yet, nervousness ate away at him. He turned quickly away from her and sunk further in on himself.

“My eyes aren’t usually this… well, bad,” she said. “And my teeth, I mean, look at ‘em.” She leaned forward to catch the corner of his eye and opened her maw. He felt his cheeks heat and turned away as a mixture of disgust and something else made his throat tighten. “They’re not supposed to be this long,” she continued ignorantly. “And my nails are like claws, I’m sure you’ve felt ‘em. And tigers aren’t generally supposed to look like I look – I mean, I appreciate the saber teeth, but that ain’t my norm. I’m meant to look human. But I’m anything but that in this world…” She trailed off and pressed her chin into his shoulder.

“And my strength has increased ever since I came here,” she murmured thoughtfully. “Yours too, I think. Quor’toth is your home, but it’s still a demon dimension. Not Earth.” She sighed softly into his shoulder. Her arms had curled around his waist and a faint tremble went up his spine. “Fuck, I miss Earth. Soon as we figure out how to get back, I’m drinking a liquor store.”

He chewed on the inside of his gum.

“What if we never went back?” He asked.

Her hands tightened on her waist and for a moment she was still.

“Do you really wanna stay here?”

Connor quietly watched the outline of the trees in front of him. His fists clenched and unclenched, and then he sighed.

“No,” he said. “I want to drink a liquor store, too. I want to go back. With you.”

She pressed closer and rubbed her face against his shoulder blade. But as he grew even more rigid than before, her eyebrows furrowed. “Are you afraid?”

“No,” he retorted.

“Alright, it’s just – you’re tense as hell. You wanna go another round?”

“No!” He scratched the back of his neck and pulled away from her. “Maybe. Later.”

“Sure, sure.” Her eyes were scanning him as she leaned back to rest her arms on her knees. The kid looked worse than ever, and he wasn’t even looking at her in the eye. It was impossible to get a read on him. Maybe she’d hit the wrong nerve. Had she pushed him too far? Had she said something wrong? “But, hey joker,” she soothed. “Are you really okay? You c _an_ talk to me, y’know, even if we suck at it.”

“You’re acting like you want to have sex.”

Shift swallowed her own tongue.

Connor’s jaw set into a firm line as he waited for her to stop choking and coughing with that heat still on his cheeks, the kind that made his head fuzzy and vulnerable.

“I don’t want to have children. And without…” he searched his mind for the right word, “Condoms, I don’t think we should try anything. Even if,” He swallowed, “I like you touching me. And I- I can’t seem to make this feeling stop.” 

The coughing subsided, it was the guilty demon’s turn to look sheepish. She ran a hand through her ragged hair as she ducked her head. “Shit joker, we don’t have to do that. Fuck knows I wouldn’t want to do that, like imagine raising children in Quor… toth. Okay bad example. I’m sorry if it feels like I’m coming off… _That_ way.”

The two of them seethed in that awkward silence. Shift watched his rigid shoulders and felt her heart pang.

“I’m not against it,” he eventually muttered. He faced away from her, but even she could hear the nervous crack in his voice. “When… When we’re safe. When it’s safe.”

She held her breath, let it out slowly, then coughed. He flinched at that. “Kid,” she murmured, “Look at me.”

He frowned, but hesitantly turned back around to face her.

“Sex is a lot more complicated than pound town equating to a bunch’a rugrats running amok.” She looked anywhere but at him as she spoke, wringing her fingers together. Every word out of her mouth was like pulling teeth. But she could see the affect she had on him now. She was no fool. And it wasn’t fair. “And, well, if you’re having issues, maybe I can help.”

“What are you going to do?” He bristled.

“Well, you never did figure out jerking yourself off, so I could… Help, with that. If you wanted.” She tentatively moved closer, looking for a snap from the curious Connor. But his eyes were fixed on her, and his jaw opened slightly as she approached his lap. His hands were clenched into fists, his shoulders hunched and strained. Her hair hid half her face, but there was no avoiding the intensity of those animal eyes. “There’s no fear of children in any way,” she continued. “Promise.”

It took a while for him to close his mouth. When he did, it was with a subtle nod.

“… Okay. What do I need to do?”

“Nothing, really,” she quickly chirped. “It’s more like, enjoy it.”

Slowly, she let out a breath. This was just Connor. She didn’t need to be nervous. There was no reason to be nervous. As she looked up into those familiar blue eyes that had been with her for so long and the face it now framed, she could feel the apprehension melt away. He wasn’t scared either. The man had always been curious, and now he was watching, waiting. Trusting. This was just another new thing, with someone she loved. Someone she’d end the world for, if she had to.

She squeezed his hand as she gave him a peck on the lips. They’d be fine. 

He squeaked against his mouth the first time she touched him. The shudder went all the way up his spine, and she waited until he’d gotten used to the concept before she tried anything else. His abdomen was rigid as stone, and faintly shaking, seconds away from snapping.

She was rusty, but that didn’t seem to matter to him. He panted against her mouth all the same as she listened to his breath. She whined against his neck, a needy, soft sound, and it drove him insane. He sought her mouth and grabbed her by the hair to make that kiss even deeper.

He called out her name, and she responded with his, purring, and driving the touch further. He craved the connection between them like nothing he had before. His nostrils filled with her scent, and then he pulled away, it was only to gasp for air. Her mouth went down, the sharp fangs dragging along his skin, and his stomach tied itself in knots. There was no room in his mind for what they meant anymore. All he cared about where what they were now. And what they were, was her.

Biting down on his shoulder was what drove him over the edge. She dug those teeth deep into his neck, drank, and he saw stars.

For her, it was fun to see him all undone, but to him, he’d just had a religious experience. The Destroyer fell back against the ground and couldn’t think for seconds as he lost feeling in his extremities once more, but for an entirely different reason. As she joined him and curled into his chest, the satisfaction rose tenfold.

As he turned to her, his hands automatically fell around her waist. She was flushed herself, pressing her face into his neck and licking gently over the drips of blood she’d caused. He couldn’t feel it, but even if he could, he wouldn’t have cared. In the haze of the afterglow, all he cared about was the peace he so often craved. He’d finally reached it, and it felt wonderful. 

“That was amazing,” he sighed when he finally found his voice.

“Aw, thanks, I know. Still got it, after all. Just like riding a bike.” She purred against his neck, and licked off the remnants of what he’d spilled on her hand. Curious, he watched her with rapt attention, the action stirring something in him and confusion him at the same time. His mouth pursed, and when she glanced at him she wished she hadn’t. That face of many questions had returned and this time there was no answer but the ones that left her embarrassed and stammering.

“What’s that?”

“Semen.” She didn’t mean to sound that high-pitched, but she couldn’t help it. And when he stared at her longer, it got worse. “Baby seeds.”

“Does it taste good?”

She paused. “… Yooou wanna taste yourself?”

Curiosity won out over disgust, and he nodded.

Alright then. Another deep breath. This wasn’t weird at all.

She gently pulled his jaw closer to hers. His eyes grew soft as she got closer, but when she kissed him and gently probed his mouth with her tongue, that expression quickly turned to confusion, then disgust. He pulled sharply away and wiped his mouth, and she grinned sheepishly.

“Maybe I shoulda warned you.”

“It’s gross,” he said in surprise. 

Her smile widened. “It’s an acquired taste. I tolerate it because it’s you.”

His hand froze at his mouth, then lowered slowly into his lap. “Oh.”

Sheepishly, he pulled her back against him and buried his face in her hair. It was warm there, and it smelled like her.

With her pressed so close to his chest, it was a sudden jolt when she began to vibrate. The sensation was strange to him at first, but when he realized what it meant, he held her even tighter. She was purring. For weeks, months, he hadn’t heard that noise. He’d almost forgotten what it sounded like. She might not have even noticed, but the deep, guttural tones of happiness were music to his ears. It reverberated through his chest like a comforting blanket. His chest panged. Her heartbeat too, he could feel it beneath her shirt. He was safe. And he wasn’t alone. 

The sound of Quor’toth felt quieter than it had been in some time. The silence was deafening, and welcome. Pretending the world didn’t exist was something Connor could get behind. There wasn’t a single confusing or hurtful thought in his head. Safe. Safe and happy. What he wouldn’t give to live like this forever.

Hours later, they eventually pulled themselves to their feet. The sun was going down, and they didn’t intend to push their luck any further than they already had. Shift butted her head against his shoulder as he started the hike back, and he grinned. But before he could catch her, she was running off ahead, phasing into that tiger form and disappearing into the undergrowth. He followed after her walloping and racing to catch up. With half his clothes ripped to shreds, the remainder fluttered in the wind as he trailed that familiar striped tail back to camp.

…

“Do you have that too?” He asked.

She was leaning against his shoulder, watching the firelight die down to embers. The night air was chill, but neither of them wanted the day to end. And she was warm, so he was in no hurry. The stars above them twinkled, and Shift’s eyes reflected light like a mirror. Off in the distance, they could hear the howling of a creature they’d be killing in the morning.

“Have what?” She yawned, and reached up to halfheartedly attempt untangling the mane of hair.

“That feeling? I forgot to ask.”

“… Orgasm?” She bit her lip, and tilted her head away nonchalantly. “I mean, yeah. Everyone does.”

“Did you… before… today…”

She paused, staring up at his bashful expression, and grinned from ear to ear. “Fuck man, you’re cute. No, bub. That was all for you. I mean, it was fun, but I didn’t really, well – that’s a one-person thing, what happened.” She laughed to herself. The bravado from the afternoon was getting to her. “Why,” she teased, “you want to try me?”

“Yes.”

She should have known better than to ask teasing questions and expect sheepish answers from Connor.

“Alright.” She let out a faint whoosh of air. “Sooooo uh, what do you wanna do here? There’s, I mean, hands, mouth –“

“Mouth?”

“If you wanted.” She was getting progressively quieter until even he was straining to catch the last of her sentences. Her hands had gone from tugging on her hair to drumming themselves against her leg. “I… ah…” She was getting worse. “You know, maybe we don’t have to do this.”

He was too close. Pressed up against her, and pushing closer until she found the ground beneath her head, and the framed face of the Destroyer above her. His blue eyes glittered down at her with interest, the ragged hair still tousled with leaves from before. He’d long since turned the remnants of his hide shirt to ribbons, and that bare chest glowed warm in firelight.

He enjoyed that sharp rise and fall of her chest.

“I want to,” he said.

“Fuckin fine, then,” she muttered, defeated by such an earnest expression. “Do your worst.”

He grinned at her, and her heart fluttered.

A few minutes in, this wasn’t the easy fun that Connor had expected.

He knew what _he_ liked, thanks to her, but this was an entire different ball game here. These were things he didn’t understand, things that probably led to him wandering around in the dark if not for her explanations of what the hell was even going on. Sometimes he hurt her without realizing it, and she had to speak through gritted teeth to get his attention and point him in the right direction. Embarrassment would jolt him back on track, and he’d go back to trying his best.

With her legs spread, she kind of just had to lie there and deal with the kid that should have probably gotten a sex ed lesson eight fucking years ago, and not _now_ when it actually mattered. Of course, she still ran her hands through his hair when he got something right and she let out a moan that made him, unfortunately, stop and ask what he’d done right. It was infuriating.

In the end, it took a group effort. She showed him what it took to bring her to the end, and he followed along as best he could. He was a quick learner, and it helped that he so desperately wanted to accomplish for her what she had for him. What experience he lacked, he made up for with enthusiasm. It was difficult to tell it was over when it was, though, and while he was still going, she had to be the one to gently push him away with faint whimpers.

“Hey,” she said with a broken voice. “It’s good, I’m done.”

“But nothing happened?”

“Don’t work that way, joker. Now come’ere.” She grabbed onto the bulk of his locks and pulled him up on top of her form, then squeezed him tight. As her lips found his, his eyes went wide, and he tried to pull away with questions of disgust ready to spill. But she wasn’t letting up to the point he was starting to think maybe he might want to go again.

When she pulled away to grin lazily at him, he felt that warmth seep deep into his bones. Her hair was a mess much like his, but her eyes were soft, and full of affection that bubbled to the surface in the sweetest rumbles.

“You don’t mind the taste?” He asked breathlessly.

“I don’t mind you more,” she purred, and pressed her face against his neck. In the quiet that followed, the fire crackled, and the tremulous purring dug deep into his soul. He pressed his lips gently to her neck, and she crooned.

Sometimes, she was certain she was imagining things. Maybe she was still there in the woods, being eaten alive. Or maybe Holtz had managed to convince poor Steven, and she was still at the bottom of that well waiting for the day of rescue that would never come. Because as she pulled away and saw the loving look into the soft eyes of the man she loved, she couldn’t imagine a better world. It was too perfect. Saccharine sweet.

And then he pressed closer, and she was struck from her thoughts as a faint noise drew from the back of his throat. “Feels like you’re good to go again,” she murmured as she stroked down the lines of his waist. “I… I could try my mouth this time, if you wanted.”

He jumped, and that same shiver went up his spine again. But then the offer registered, and as he looked into her heady eyes, it was his turn to swallow. That wasn’t just fear that made his heartbeat so fast. His grip on her tightened.

“What about your teeth?” He asked. 

She smiled and pressed her forehead to his.

“I would never hurt you, joker,” she said softly. “Promise.”

His shoulders relaxed, and he nodded.


	21. An Old World

The thrill of intimacy was a new one for Connor. It was like he had discovered a new shiny button, and now he never wanted to stop pressing it. And she was gentle, despite some well-deserved crabbiness on her end when he got a little confused and pressed the wrong thing.

The best part was the end of it, when he was holding his demon, content that he had just been with someone he cared about. She knew him. She understood how he worked better than he did. It was kind of frustrating, actually, and a little unfair.

But he did have the upper hand when it came to sweeping her off her feet. She could make him interested in her without even trying, but when she actively tried, she could never get through to that thick skull of his. He was too deadpan to get her references. Some of them she was glad he didn’t get, but others were just sad. She was wasting comedy gold on a man that thought the best invention to ever exist were a flint and steel.

But Connor was very good at breaking her. When he grinned at her, her heart fluttered. When he pounced on her, she immediately wanted to give in. When he whispered her name, she couldn’t help but fall for him in every possible way all over again. God, but it was sappy. She was getting sick of all the sugar and basking in it at the same time. He was such a puppy, and she couldn’t help but be the same. He brought out that part of her she’d buried for far too long in this hell dimension. The need to have her Connor back. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend she never left him. The thing about immortals, they cling to the good fleeting moments, and soon forget the decades of torment to make room for them.

And when they were like this, everything was perfect. 

But in the dead of night, Shift would feel the boy stir in her arms, then stand from the pile of furs and shake off the sleep. He’d walk slowly and silently, as though he had forgotten they shared hypersensitive ears, over to the covered door of their shelter, then step out into the night air. She’d sit up and watch his form silhouetted by the light of the moon. She could see his face in the dark. The lines of his mouth were set in a deep frown. As he crouched down beside the front entrance of the door and watched Quor’toth’s dangerous night go by, the cogs in his mind turned, and the guilt weighed him down until his shoulders were slouched and his back crooked.

He wasn’t going to give up killing Angel.

How could he? After all he had been through, he couldn’t now. All Holtz had ever wanted from him was the spiteful end of that vampire. And as much as it made Shift sick to her stomach, she knew that he still loved that man. He would never see Holtz as anything other than a misguided father. And there was nothing stopping him from fulfilling his fathers wishes, except for her.

Shift clutched tighter at the blankets.

D-Day was approaching soon. He was already 18. And if she hadn’t entirely fucked up the timeline, he would find that way out of here. She wasn’t sure how he’d done it, but she knew it would happen.

Maybe something different would happen when he’d eventually fall through that portal. They’d be going into this without that snake of a hunter whispering sweet nothings in his ear, after all. But if all Connor ever wanted was Angel, it might still end the same way. Not the vampire’s death necessarily, nor the torture of being stuck at the bottom of the sea, but the broken family, and the descent into the maelstrom that was Cordelia. And the fear. And the confusion. And the building, and the bombs, and the death -

No, she assured herself. That was _never_ going to happen. She was here now. No immortal demon monster was going to get her claws into the kid and use him for –

Well. She knew what she meant.

But there were so many moving pieces, and she only had parts of the puzzle. The memories from the Connor _she_ knew were still there in her, but they were self-reflective second-hand knowledge from the man himself. Not even the Connor she knew before knew everything. For all his life, he was treated like a pawn, with only the understanding of a pawn. There were so many things that she hadn’t realized going into this, and that plus her own hubris had led to the all the problems she told herself she wasn’t going to let happen. And then, all this time, and she hadn’t bothered to try and wrench away the dog from his Angel-worrying bone.

Shift squeezed her eyes tight, then opened them and pulled herself to her feet. Cloaked around her was one of the pelts from their bed, its scent musty and still smelling like both of them. As she took her first few steps toward the door, Connor jumped, and twitched his face back to see her luminous eyes reflecting the moonlight.

“Hey, joker.”

“You can’t sleep?” He moved over to allow her some room, and the two of them perched outside the door and listened to the night sounds of the hell dimension.

“I don’t sleep.”

“You know what I mean.”

She shook her head, and smiled. “Nah. I was wondering what you were thinking.”

Connor chewed on the inside of his gum as he turned away from her. She could see the thought process in action. He wasn’t stupid. He knew this would lead to conflict. But did he really want to spoil the moment? Leaning closer to the demon and ending up with his head resting against his shoulder, he stretched out over the rocky ground of their entrance and sighed.

“I was thinking about what’s to come.”

“Yeah, I’d imagine so. Drinking a liquor store, right?” She grinned tentatively, but the joke did little to lighten the mood.

“Yeah. Angel first. Then the liquor store. And the club. And the condom store.”

It was her turn to sigh.

“I thought you were going to say that.”

“I have to,” he said quickly.

“I know you think that.”

“But I don’t just think that!” He sat up and gripped her by the shoulders. She held the fur tighter around herself. “The mission doesn’t just end, just because… because…”

Gently, she took his hand on her, and placed it back in his lap. “I know. But, and I know this is hard to understand or even approach right now…” She swallowed. “You don’t have to follow in your father’s footsteps in order to honor his memory.”

“How can you say that?” The Destroyer’s nostrils flared. “You could never understand. I have to do this. You’re a demon, you don’t have parents that looked after you. You don’t have a family. Not like I do.”

Her throat tightened, and she bit back the spite.

“Think of it this way,” she said instead. “In the end, Holtz showed his true colors, didn’t he? At the very end, you know the kind of person he was. You know he tried to kill me because he thought I was tearing you away. And he threw you at the titan expecting either you to die, or me to try to save you, and die in the process. He would rather have died than have lived with us peacefully. He could never get past what I was, Connor. Do you remember that?”

Connor didn’t want to. But he did. And, reluctantly, he nodded.

“And here’s the kicker,” she added. “Everything you’ve ever heard about Angel has only ever come from me or him. What kind of story did he spin about that demon, Connor? Was it good? Because it sure as hell felt like the same as mine.”

There was a kneejerk reaction to defend his father. He was hunched over, his shoulders up, his eyes glowering into the dirt, and had a retort before he was even thinking of what he was saying.

“Was he wrong about you?” He growled.

“What?” Shift waited for that expression to change, but it didn’t.

“You pulled me away from him.” The young man kicked at a nearby stone. “You made me fall in love with you. And now you’re trying to make me forget about Angel. Just like he said you would. How is this any different? Sure, he didn’t like you. And he never tried to. And he hurt you. A lot. Enough that it was unforgivable. But you’re trying to convince me not to go after that monster, that, that _demon._ And you’re a demon too.”

“ _Connor!_ ”

He flinched, and ducked his head. The softness was back in his eyes, along with regret. “I… I’m sorry.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “No, no I get it,” she spat, and turned away from him. “I’m a demon. Why trust me?” She waved her hands in exasperation. “I’m just the fuckin’ monster homewrecker walking in and merc’ing your dad. Ruining your one good familial relationship and then asking you, politely, to love the _other_ demon you think is pure evil. Sounds like a big fuckin’ pill to swallow for anyone.”

“Exactly.”

She twisted her head around in shock. “Dude.”

“But - I want to believe you’re always right. I love you. And I know that you love me too. But now, now you’re telling me to do things that I can’t do. You’re different, Shift. You’re not the same kind of thing as the creatures in Quor’toth. And you’re not an undead monster like _him._ And that’s why I need to do this.”

“But you don’t. And I can’t die, joker. I can’t change my shape. I can’t even cut my hair without it coming back in an instant. I might as well be undead with a beating heart. There’s barely a difference.”

His mouth soured into a frown. “You’re not the same,” he said again, louder this time. “You’re not him.” 

“Aren’t I?” She shot back. She hunched over, bitter and cold. “I might as well be just as bad as that sickening goody goody. All I have right now are words, to convince you now. You’re right, we’re different. I could tell you he’s a bleeding heart, that he’d rather lie down and let you kill him than ever kill you, that in a second, he’d sacrifice himself for you, a heroic bleeding heart asswipe just as caring as you-”

“We’re nothing alike,” the Destroyer snarled.

“But you wouldn’t listen,” she finished.

Her intense glare was matched by the defeated, albeit angry one of his own. Neither of them were backing down, regardless of who was right or wrong. For Connor, that didn’t matter. He no longer had the luxury of listening to right or wrong. Now it wasn’t justice, it was revenge and legacy. His father wasn’t around anymore to mar his own image, and Connor had made him into the man he never was.

The silence no longer palpable, he stood up. “I’m going back inside,” he told her.

“Am I welcome there too?” She asked.

There was a second of hesitation before his answer.

“Yes,” he said. And then he went back to bed.

She turned back angrily to the Quor’toth night, biting her lip hard enough to draw beads of blood.

It was out there in the open like a festering wound finally able to breathe now. The question then became how the hell she was going to convince him without becoming the very manipulators she was trying to fight. Because, at that moment, she couldn’t see much of a difference.

…

The days passed, and things hadn’t changed much between them on the surface. It was the same routine they always had.

But after their hunts, they sat across from each other, rather than beside each other. They faced off against each other with guarded looks that betrayed the deeper fight beneath them. It was as though they were had returned to the wary enemies they once were when he was young.

In the end, it was only looks, but that expression held all the challenge in the world. Connor dared her to broach the topic again when it looked like there was a lull in the same way that he believed Holtz’s training had tested his loyalty from birth to the day his father breathed his last. It didn’t matter if the Hunter was dead. The demon would never overpower the programming that had long since been laid deep in the boy’s psyche. It would take time she didn’t have, and words she didn’t know how to use. She wasn’t going to win this fight.

It didn’t stop her trying.

It was a sunny day. Their sparring match had ended in the same way it always did; with Connor laid undressed beside her sweaty and satisfied. She was much the same, but he was the one still in a haze, while her thoughts had long since come to order. It was the perfect time to catch him off guard, even if she hated to ruin the moment. 

“Do you remember what I said, before, about Holtz?” She asked him while staring up at the pristine sky. Quor’toth’s sky wasn’t often picturesque, and a lightning storm would hit soon enough, but for now she enjoyed the blue that reminded her of home.

Connor groaned beside her. “No,” he breathed.

“That God didn’t bring you to Holtz because he was worthy, and Angel wasn’t.”

“You’re wrong,” he grunted halfheartedly, and slowly turned over on his side to face her half-dressed and heated body. “And you’re ruining the feeling.”

“Just, listen to me for a second, alright?” she argued. “That guy, Angel, he was crazy. Crazy enough that no matter how many prophecies his name was tied to, he was about jump into Quor’toth after you. It was a fluke – maybe fate, who knows with the Powers That Be,” she bit down hard on her lip. “But he couldn’t go after you. No matter how much he wanted to.”

“You’re lying,” he grumbled.

“Is everything I say just a lie to you now?”

“I don’t know. Why do we have to talk about this right now?”

“Because I don’t want you to get hurt.” She turned, pressed up against him, and grabbed his jaw in her hands. “You believed me when I told you I was from the future.”

“Yeah.” His voice was distorted as she squished his cheeks together.

“When why can’t you believe that I’m telling the truth now?”

“Because… Because…” The afterglow, and Connor pushed her hand away in frustration. “Just because.”

“Because why?”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Connor, if we never talk about this, then history will repeat itself. And I can’t let that happen.”

He hissed through his teeth. “How do you know that will happen? You killed my father. Things have changed. It won’t be the same when we go back.”

She sighed, and pressed closer to him. “Fate has a way of doing what it wants to do. I don’t want to take those chances. And taking down Angel, that’s something that goes smack dab down the path that ruins you.”

“Well I can’t give up!” He finally exclaimed as he pulled away. “If I give up, then everything…” His voice cracked. “Then it’s all meaningless.”

She found his hand and gripped it tight.

“Quor’toth trained you to be strong,” she said softly. “It trained you to survive. And it did a fucking great job. None of that is meaningless. And it doesn’t mean you have to kill Angel. That doesn’t need to be part of your future.” She swallowed hard. “Connor, there’s another dad out there. He’s waiting for you, grieving because he thinks you’re dead. This doesn’t have to be what you think it is. It can be something else entirely.”

“No,” he said, and tugged away from her like she was made of hot coals. His voice was as stubborn as she expected it to be. What she hadn’t expected was quite that level of disgust.

“But what the hell is the point of doing this?” She asked in exasperation. “What would you gain from killing him? Satisfaction?”

“Justice. For my father.”

“The father that spent his life ruining you.”

“He wasn’t ruining me,” the Destroyer argued sharply. “He was protecting me. And he was misguided.”

“And then everything fell apart, because he showed all he cared about was an undeserved vendetta.” She sat up and finally peeled herself away from the young man.

“I didn’t forget what he did to you,” he muttered. “But that doesn’t change his own suffering.”

“But doesn’t it, maybe, put into question what the fuck else he did the last eighteen years? He _lied,_ Connor. About a lot. Maybe everything.”

Connor’s mouth sealed shut, then trembled. No matter how many breaths he took, he couldn’t find his way back to normal.

“I… I can’t believe that.” His voice cracked. “I want to believe you, Shift. I want to trust you. But… But…” He stopped talking. The thoughts were taking over, and no matter how much he fought against them, his mind wouldn’t listen to him. Justice. Family. The ties ran deep, and there was no breaking them, not without grievous wounds. Shift closed her eyes as that pain settled on her shoulders.

Every word she said felt wrong and was sandpaper on her tongue.

She couldn’t do this. Not to him. She wasn’t a manipulator. And she wasn’t supposed to be fighting a battle just to get him to believe her.

All this time, she’d been trying to save him from mind games. But in order to get her to believe him, did she really need to force him into one of her own making?

Defeated, she pulled him into her arms and held him close.

“I don’t want to break your world,” she said softly. “Fuck, man, I don’t want to break your mind either. I want you to trust me, but I don’t want that to be blind. Questioning things are good, Connor. I’m glad you do. You’re doing everything right. I just… I just wish I had something that could change your mind.”

“I’m sorry,” he managed to croak. She held him tighter.

“Don’t apologize. I know you feel like you have to do this. This is going to be a big fuckin’ step, going into the other world. The last thing you need is me not having your back. And it that means taking down Angel… Well, then promise me this.” She pulled away to look the Destroyer in the eye. His conflicted gaze met hers, and she smiled.

“Give it three days,” she said.

He stared at her in hopeless confusion.

“Three days ‘till execution. If you want to kill him by then, then you can. And I won’t stop you. If he is truly the monster you think he is, then what’s three days for you? I’m not even saying stop him from whatever murder spree you think he’ll go on. Just – don’t kill him. Three days. And we’ll have those three days to go party like animals.”

“Three days,” he repeated.

He cast his gaze down. Arguments were at the tip of his tongue. All he wanted was for this to be over. To hunt, with her, forever, his father’s legacy intact. But when he looked back up to her face and saw that encouraging look, waiting for him to agree, he couldn’t just spit fire again.

She didn’t understand that he was doing this for her. And she never would. But if three days was enough to pacify her, then he could agree to that.

“Fine.” His words were pulled from his mouth like teeth with pliers. “I’ll wait. But that doesn’t mean I won’t do it eventually. I’m still going to take him down.”

“I am perfectly okay with stalling for time. Three days, and I promise you, you’ll see what I’m talking about.” Clasping a hand on his shoulder, she grinned up at him. He resisted one of his own. He wanted to, but he didn’t have the motivation left. At the core of his being, he was hollow. And sad.

“What am I going to do?” He met her gaze with earnest, watery eyes. “When I get there?”

“Have fun, right?”

“Fun.” He said the word like it was foreign on his tongue. “How… How am I supposed to do that?”

“Trust me. There’s fun to be had.”

“No, I mean, how can I even think of doing anything other than planning when he’s there?” He closed his eyes, and more thoughts burrowed their way through his mind and onto the painful surface. “I can’t face him,” he muttered. His voice was a shadow of words. “Not when he left me behind.”

Her eyes smoked. “Connor…” She pulled him close again, and felt the tension slowly leave his shoulders. “He didn’t. I promise he didn’t.”

“But he did.”

How much she wanted to prove him wrong. How much she wanted to open his mind and see the future spread out before him. How much she wished he could believe her. Anything to relieve the heartbreak.

But all she could do was hold him and offer empty words. “If you truly believe that, then I’ll help you kill him myself. No one is allowed to abandon you, Connor.” Her grip tightened. “You’re too precious for that.”

As much as every part of him wanted to believe she was right, he couldn’t.

And yet, he still latched onto her, and pulled her close, and listened to the heartbeat of only person left in the world that he cared about.

…

Their hunt had been glorious. A windy, foggy day in the barren lands, and the two were gaining on the monstrous beast with horns and rows upon rows of teeth. The slimy, dark coated thing that stood at twice their heights had gotten a good bite at Connor, but much like most things in Quor’toth, the Destroyer’s skin couldn’t be pierced by something as boring as a razor-toothed hell monster. In fact, all the demon had done was rile up Connor more. The thrill of the hunt had him exhilarated and following it further into its territory with Shift close behind. Chasing the creature for miles, they crossed forest, swamp, cliffs, and eventually land they hadn’t seen before, not that either were particularly worried.

They’d find their way back. This dimension was their oyster. So what if the trees gave out to rocky soil and cliffs of stone and holes? So what if the hot, muggy weather made him feel like he was breathing water? Nothing could quench them. This was their hunt, and they would see it to the end.

Working together, Connor and Shift pulled a pin on the monster so fast that the thing didn’t know what hit it, and then the demon set on it with all ferocity of a wild cat. Her claws dug into the thing’s skin and ripped at whatever she could touch, and her fangs tore out chunk after chunk of flesh. As quick as the thing was, she was quicker, and she clambered up onto the larger beast like an insect in an attempt to get at its head. Connor set off a few bolts into the thing’s sticky hide, but she took a more direct approach, biting through the creature’s neck with an unhinged jaw. He looked on in pride and was about to strike out with the sword he pulled out of his sheath at his side, when something caught him off guard.

The faintest of buzzing, at the edge of his mind, almost impossible to really hear, and yet he heard it. Someone was calling his name.

Connor turned around wildly with his crossbow reloaded and his sword in hand, ready for whatever creature could dare speak his name into the wind. But there was no one there. Nothing but fog, and the strange sensation that there were eyes just out of sight, watching him.

And then that voice again. It was just at the edge of his senses. It moved through his mind like a blade through flesh. Was it real? Or was it the sound of their battle glancing off against the cliffsides and messing with his ears? It didn’t sound like Shift, nor the wicked cries of the monster being torn to shreds. It was soft, and quiet, and… Dark. Hard to pin down. Hard to even tell if it was his own name at all.

He glanced back at fire demon, but she was nearly lost in the fog. The battle continued on. He could hear her laughter close by, the thrill of the fight getting to her just as well as it had to him.

It was his first good look at the rock formations that littered the barren wasteland they’d walked into. A deserted wasteland otherwise, the formations were filled with holes that made whistling noises when the wind blew through them. Perhaps that was the sound he’d heard. Sounds distorted here, and the muggy temperatures were starting to heat his mind. Plodding along, even his own footfalls seemed to echo around them until soon they were no longer distinguishable as his own.

There was no one around with a voice when he finally discovered the source of that noise. Instead, there was another rock formation littered with holes, and beneath it under the overhang, a pool of those slug creatures he’d learned of so long ago. They jumped in the water, but not at him. Away. Far away, seeming to disappear entirely in such shallow water that couldn’t have possibly held such an ample school.

The slugs, like most of Quor’toth, had heard many tales of the Destroyer. The king of all beasts, the creature that dared fight a titan, mates with something made of pure fire. Every pool had learned his name and what he meant, and they were smart enough to know to get away. And as Connor began to do what Connor did best, kneel down in front of the pool and stab enthusiastically at the slimy creatures he disliked so much, they began to disappear in droves to try and get away from the kid. He watched intently as the swarm slowly disappeared. Some bodies continued to float in the water, and some tried to escape into the wasteland out of the pools by launching themselves away, but others seemed to disappear entirely. Confusion mounted, and he kept stabbing, until there were so little left that there was no hiding the tiny gemstone that glittered near the center of the shallow pool. From his position on the edge, he could nearly reach it, if he tried. 

Connor narrowed his eyes at it, peered closer, and smelled something he never had before. It was strange. Otherworldly. Acrid, hostile, and unnatural, it haunted the part of his mind that lacked long term memory. Nothing in all of Quor’toth matched the scent that was currently assailing his nostrils, yet somehow, he knew he should know what it was. It was maddening, having it right in front of him and looking for something that was at the tip of his tongue. But he couldn’t figure it out. It was too long ago, and the memories associated with the scent hadn’t been fully formed.

Still, this sparkling gem remained there in the center of the pool, silent, and beautiful. Pulsing with the tiniest particles of light. He couldn’t take his eyes off of it.

“Shift!” He called out to the demon without taking his gaze off the strange stone. He probed closer with a hand to try and grasp it, and was zapped with a strange energy that overwhelmed his body. Every nerve was suddenly on fire, and in that split second, he was gasping for breath. He pulled back sharply, stared at it, then probed again with a finger, to the same result.

“I’m a little busy right now!” With inhuman force, she slammed into the creature and knocked it onto its side. It snapped at her, and off went her left hand. She cursed as she gave herself a second to examine the bloody stump where it had once been. Turning back to it, she snarled in anger, and punched it hard in the snout with her good hand. “Plus, there’s the mate to deal with – the hell are you doing over there? You’re supposed to be watching my back here! I can’t see shit with this fog, and I sure as hell know you can’t!”

“There’s something over here,” he called back. Touching the gem had proven to him that it was not, indeed, a gem, but rather something else. Electrocuting himself repeatedly now, he still couldn’t quite place where it had come from or what that smell was. But it wasn’t something he could grab.

He jumped into the pool and waded closer until he was level with the thing. The water only rose to his calves, but he got himself soaked as he knelt down to analyze it further. He could see even more movement than before. It was a shimmering piece of glass, cracked and tiny, and it was motionless and floating in the center of the water.

After some struggle, the demon tore the head off the monster and threw it away with some disgust. Her hand was still knitting together, and she looked it over with some disdain before tracking her mate in the middle of the heavy fog. Thank hell his scent was easy to follow, otherwise she would have been utterly lost. She was as blind as a bat in the fog. “Alright, what the hell are you doing?” She called out to the vague shapes in the distance.

“I don’t know. There’s this… Scent. And this gemstone. I can’t quite grasp it. But the slugs are gone.” He stood up and finally caught a glimpse of the demon approaching. He pointed to it, and she followed that arm to the tiny crack in the fabric of reality.

She grimaced.

There it was. That stupid thing that she was waiting with bated breath for.

She thought there would have been more fanfare, honesty. But there was no meaning in the placement of this broken piece of the universe. Everything about the Destroyer’s life was convenience. Somewhere, somehow down the line, a certain grimy Power That Be wormed their way into every aspect of his life. Even Quor’toth.

And here was the evidence, staring her in the face. This was what was to come. Convenience, and fate.

Well, fuck it. Not on her fucking watch. Let’s fucking get in there and prove to that bitch just how wrong she is.

“That’s not a gemstone, Connor,” she said.

“I know it’s not _actually_ a gemstone, I just don’t know what else to call it. It keeps zapping me-”

“That’s the way out.”

He turned back to the shimmering image, then to her.

“Seriously?”

She nodded, and leaned up against the side of the rock formation. The overhang of hollow rippled now against the pool with the light the tiny window into the other world was making. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time. Surrounded by fog, this tiny beacon continued to shine in the darkness. “Yeah. That’s our ticket out of here. You finally found it.”

Let them take Jasmine’s convenience. Let them use this as the way out, so she could get ever closer to that god. That way it would be much easier to punch her in the face. Save the kid, and maybe save the world. But saving the kid, now that was the priority.

He turned back to image, and swallowed.

“What do I do?”

“What do you think?” She grinned at him and cocked her head toward it.

“Do what you do best, joker. Start punching.” 


	22. Author's Note

Next book in progress, first chapter ETA next week. Maybe. I can dream.

I kept getting bogged down with school work during writing and editing this, which didn't help when I had to rewrite the majority of the second half. Right around the titan scene the quality dipped in the original draft, and it wasn't up to my standard. I hope it's not too riddled with spelling errors. Somehow I always miss some even with multiple beta readers, sorry about that.

There's a playlist for this fic, if anyone is interested. I used that as the inspiration for writing all of this. [The Playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNAltzfKqZLgMHj8al7tyL8QoUHsb5rvL)

It's mostly just a bunch of rock songs that help bring the early 2000s theme of Connor and the Angel series of a whole into the 21st century. 

Now for a little Q and A. 

Q: What's going to happen next?

A: What I said in the beginning is true, we're going to get all the way up to around Spin the Bottle. If I get really frisky, maybe even further than that. 

Q: Why is this now two books?

A: I didn't want to make anyone read more than 100,000 words in one book, so I'm going to turn this into two. The next book will probably be just as large anyways. 

Q: Who is Shift and how the hell did you come up with her? Is she a self insert?

A: I dunno if you've looked around my profile, but I prefer writing original work, and she's a vital character in several of those works. She's not a self insert. After a friend and I ended up starting up a now 7 years long rp, she introduced multiple characters torn from established fiction, including him (yes, cringy, I know.) But we ended up coming up with a very compelling story between Shift and Connor mostly by accident. They have a lot in common. I had never even heard of the series when my friend first introduced the character, so when I ended up watching it I realized I HAD to change his godawful story line in some way, even if it was a little masturbatory in retrospect. Shift's got an entire story to her aside from Connor that I probably will write someday. This was mostly a side project. 

Q: What the fuck is going on with her? I didn't get half of the thing she said, with her talking about lore and other worlds?

A: Coles notes, she comes from that rp world I was talking about, in a universe with multiple gods and devils and such. Connor was saved in that world by a God that ripped him from his. It's very dense but I tried not to let that storyline take over here. The point is trying to fix THIS Connor in THIS main storyline of Angel the Series, not turning a random ass rp into a full on story. Whatever happened in her world doesn't matter. It exists, but whatever is going on in there doesn't need to be explained in full in order to get what's going on here.

Q: What does Shift look like? 

A: Well I'm glad you asked, I have too much art of her. 

[A full body of Shift](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/f208ed65-38a0-45b1-ba2e-ffe4524e407a/de65vb2-067d9052-3b19-4fef-b90a-b403ad13927f.png/v1/fill/w_894,h_894,q_70,strp/updated_shift_reference_by_cassidy_nighthawk_de65vb2-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3siaGVpZ2h0IjoiPD0yMDAwIiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvZjIwOGVkNjUtMzhhMC00NWIxLWJhMmUtZmZlNDUyNGU0MDdhXC9kZTY1dmIyLTA2N2Q5MDUyLTNiMTktNGZlZi1iOTBhLWI0MDNhZDEzOTI3Zi5wbmciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MjAwMCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.P2RCv5jvwNePkPIcP-dugF3YcFH-H5YA8FZdKxGCW4g)

[Shift angry at the concept of Christmas](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/f208ed65-38a0-45b1-ba2e-ffe4524e407a/ddmlk49-edce2774-2e1c-4b04-9e29-98e9cf2455cd.png/v1/fill/w_894,h_894,q_70,strp/a_very_shifty_christmas_by_cassidy_nighthawk_ddmlk49-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3siaGVpZ2h0IjoiPD0zMDAwIiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvZjIwOGVkNjUtMzhhMC00NWIxLWJhMmUtZmZlNDUyNGU0MDdhXC9kZG1sazQ5LWVkY2UyNzc0LTJlMWMtNGIwNC05ZTI5LTk4ZTljZjI0NTVjZC5wbmciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MzAwMCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.7E005ENSi81-dfBZxJrttcYtwKRNqwWBjxjtu57LVZU)

[A stylized Shift](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/f208ed65-38a0-45b1-ba2e-ffe4524e407a/ddduhz0-afdca1b3-b059-41e7-a96a-da8047385a5d.png/v1/fill/w_894,h_894,q_70,strp/shift_in_bling_by_cassidy_nighthawk_ddduhz0-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3siaGVpZ2h0IjoiPD0zMDAwIiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvZjIwOGVkNjUtMzhhMC00NWIxLWJhMmUtZmZlNDUyNGU0MDdhXC9kZGR1aHowLWFmZGNhMWIzLWIwNTktNDFlNy1hOTZhLWRhODA0NzM4NWE1ZC5wbmciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MzAwMCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.rd7pcgGoCNMwfNC3uethUw0aDuDyH3XUGf3tPFhB0uo)

If you have anymore questions, feel free to ask below. 


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